


Lucky

by earlgreytea68



Series: Lucky [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Babyfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-24 14:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2585522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur finds a baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】Lucky 阿福 BY earlgreytea68](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171425) by [CoraT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoraT/pseuds/CoraT)



> I was all stressed out about a variety of things and let myself fool around with this idea to alleviate some stress, and then I woke up this morning thinking, "...Is it weird to name a baby Lucky?" YOU GUYS, I THINK I'M NAMING THIS BABY LUCKY. 
> 
> I've been putting it on Tumblr, but Tumblr is a terrible place for fic and I'm going to lose track of it so I'm putting it here so that I can keep track of it until it becomes something, as it inevitably will. It's possible this one will be a little more crowd-sourced than usual, so if you're not following me on Tumblr and you want to laugh at my failing over the state of my own mind, you should: earlgreytea68.tumblr.com. 
> 
> I owe SO MUCH CREDIT (or blame) to the enthusiastic commenters on skellerbvvt's fic Rule Ten, which can be find in LJ comments here: http://skellerbvvt.livejournal.com/71150.html I was reading the fic, but I found myself taking huge sidetrips into reading the comments to the fic, and one of the commenters said, "Is there a fic out there where Arthur finds a baby?" Argh, I can't find the comment now! I am, like, literally four years late filling that prompt (if no one else has done it first), but here it is, and maybe that LJ commenter will come upon this fic and be like, "Wait a second..." and if so: THANK YOU for the glorious idea. 
> 
> Someone on Tumblr said that they love me for my inability to resist babyfic, and really, honestly, when I fell in love with Arthur/Eames I was like, "Oh, finally, characters I really can't see as fathers, I won't have to write an Inception babyfic." WHY DO I SAY STUPID THINGS LIKE THAT?

Arthur had been running on pure adrenaline, and he didn’t have the luxury to stop, not even now. The bullet was extracted and Eames’s leg was all stitched up and Arthur had paid the exorbitant fee of the back-alley doctor but Eames was still unconscious, his breaths still shallow and rattly, and Arthur couldn’t relax. Arthur stalked from window to window, gun drawn, safety off, looking for anyone who might have been able to track them. Arthur had been so careful— _so careful_ —but he had also been dragging Eames along with him, and Eames had not just been a huge liability because he was injured but also because Arthur had to work very, very hard to think straight when Eames was bleeding all over him and slurring nonsense words together and leaning heavily on Arthur, his face pressed into Arthur’s neck. 

Arthur finished his circuit of the window and walked over to check on Eames, peering nervously into his face, brushing a hand over his forehead. The “doctor” had said he needed to keep watch for fever. He didn’t think Eames was warm but it was hot in the fucking hovel Arthur had holed them up in, close and muggy, while the rain poured down in sheets outside, unrelenting.

Arthur sighed and went back to his circuit around the windows, until finally Eames stirred, a faint groan.

Arthur was at his side immediately, grabbing the water bottle he’d procured, crouching to say, “Eames? Eames.” Eames didn’t respond, so Arthur reached out and placed a hand on his cheek to try to ground him a little bit, keep him in consciousness. “Eames.”

Eames’s eyelashes fluttered, and his eyes opened, and he peered closely at Arthur, as if it was painful for him to put the effort into _looking_. And, in fact, his eyes immediately fell closed again. “Arthur,” he managed, although the word lost entirely the clipped r’s that usually killed Arthur with sexiness.

“Yeah. Listen, I need to get you to drink something, but I’ve only got a bottle. Can you manage it?”

“’Sit vodka?” slurred Eames.

Arthur wanted to laugh with relief but he thought he’d probably start crying if he did and that would get messy fast. “Sorry, no. I’ll find you some vodka later.”

“Should get me vodka. Helps with infection,” Eames managed.

“Not drinking it,” said Arthur, and held the water bottle up to Eames’s mouth.

Eames managed a small sip, grunted some noncommittal response to Arthur, then seemed to collapse a little bit, even though he was already laying down, as if he’d used up all of his energy lifting his head slightly for the water.

Arthur looked at him, at how pale he was, at how his chapped lips were drawn tightly together in a way Arthur had never seen them before. “How much does it hurt?” he asked softly.

“’S okay,” said Eames. “I can deal.”

“Can you manage some Advil? It’s all I’ve got.”

There was a long silence. Arthur almost thought that Eames had slipped back into unconsciousness. Then Eames said, “Don’t think I could swallow.”

“Okay,” Arthur said, and sat on the floor next to the couch he’d sprawled Eames on and put his gun in his lap. “You’re going to be fine,” he whispered to Eames, just in case he needed the reassurance.

Eames didn’t seem to be conscious to hear it.

***

The next time Eames regained consciousness, he seemed somewhat more alert. Judging by the fact that the first thing he said was, “You look terrible.”

“Thank you,” said Arthur dryly. “Believe it or not, you look worse. Drink some more for me, please.” He carefully tripped the bottle against Eames’s lips.

“When’s the last time you slept?” asked Eames, once he’d swallowed a tiny amount.

It was annoying, because Eames should have been a disaster, but his eyes were sharp on Arthur. Arthur supposed he should have been pleased that Eames was doing well enough that this eyes looked bright and unclouded by fever. But he wasn’t. He said truthfully, “I don’t know. Drink some more.”

Eames drank a little bit more, then said, “You should get some sleep.”

“I can’t,” said Arthur. “I’m not sure we got away clean.”

“How long have I been out?” asked Eames.

That was another good question. Everything was running together and the unrelenting rain meant that even day looked a lot like night. Arthur said, “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Drink a little more.”

Eames obeyed, and said, “Get some sleep. I’ll stay up.”

Arthur snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

“I’m serious. I’m feeling better.”

“Eames, you almost died, okay? The bullet nicked your artery. You lost a ton of blood. You need to rest and recover.”

“I’m not going to get up and dance,” said Eames. “I’m going to lay here and if anyone shows up, I’ll shout for you. Now give me your gun.”

Arthur lifted his eyebrows. “Never mind. You’re clearly delusional. You’ll set it off and kill both of us.”

“If I had more energy, I would roll my eyes at you. Just give me the bloody gun, Arthur.”

Arthur hesitated. But he was exhausted and he recognized he wasn’t going to do them any good much longer in the state he was in. He offered Eames the gun and said, “Show me you can handle taking the safety off and putting it back on.”

Eames said, “Oh. Oh, dear. I seem to have forgotten how to do that. Could you show me, Arthur, dearest darling, please? I am quite addled by my injury, it seems.”

“Shut up,” Arthur said. “I want to make sure you’ve got enough hand-eye coordination to do this. I’m not going to have dragged you out of that whole mess to have you kill yourself mishandling a gun.”

Eames sighed and clicked the safety off and then back on. “Satisfied?”

It wasn’t as clean as it would normally have been but it wasn’t bad, and Arthur really needed to sleep. “Yes,” he said. “Make sure you wake me up if—”

“Arthur, where was I shot?” Eames interjected patiently.

Arthur blinked at him in alarm. “In your leg. Eames—”

“Not my head. So my brain is working just fine, I promise you.”

Arthur looked at him and acknowledged his point by saying, “Your brain never works fine.” But he settled on the floor bunching his suit coat up at as a pillow.

“Go to sleep, Arthur,” Eames said.

***

Arthur was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

And it felt like he hadn’t slept for any time at all before he woke to Eames calling his name.

Arthur tensed, sitting up immediately into battle stations.

“No,” Eames said, and he sounded exhausted. “No emergency.” He was slurring his words in a way he hadn’t been before Arthur had fallen asleep.

Arthur blinked his drowsiness away, leaned closed to Eames on the couch. “You okay?” He swept his hand against Eames’s forehead, but it wasn’t warm.

“I’m fine,” said Eames. “Just bloody exhausted. Stupid gunshot wound.” He grumbled it like a little child.

“Yes. Very inconvenient,” Arthur agreed, and suppressed his completely irrational urge to press a fond kiss to Eames’s forehead. He took the gun that Eames was holding limply and slid it onto his lap. And then he said, “Go ahead, I’ve got it now, you can go back to sleep.”

Eames was fighting the heaviness of his eyelids. “You didn’t sleep for nearly long enough.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay until your next bout of consciousness. Can you drink a bit for me before you fall back to sleep?”

Eames sipped a little bit of water, and Arthur thought that had to be good enough for now. He leaned back against the couch, tired but no longer as incapacitatingly exhausted as he had been.

Eames said blurrily, “Arthur?”

“Right here,” Arthur said, in case Eames was getting disoriented. Arthur had been shot before, never as bad as Eames, and he remembered how long it had taken to stop getting fuzzy at weird sudden points, from pain or medication or some combination of the two.

“Thanks,” said Eames.

“Thank you for not dying,” said Arthur after a moment.

“I aim to please,” mumbled Eames.

***

“You’re getting better,” Arthur told Eames, coaxing more water into him.

“You say that like you’re surprised,” remarked Eames. He still sounded tired, not exactly his old sickeningly chipper self, but he was staying awake for longer periods of time at a clip and Arthur thought his wound looked good whenever he checked it.

“You weren’t the one who had to catch you when you completely collapsed into unconsciousness,” Arthur remarked drily.

“Sorry about that,” said Eames, and Arthur avoided his eyes, putting the water bottle back and pretending that he hadn’t completely panicked in that moment. “Thanks for catching me, though. You could have let me hit the floor.”

“Of course I couldn’t have, Eames,” Arthur bit out impatiently. “And I don’t think you should be joking about it because I don’t think you’re appreciating how very touch-and-go it was, okay?”

Arthur could feel Eames’s eyes steadily on him and it was horrifying, how much he must be giving away right now.

“You were worried,” Eames concluded.

“Of course I was worried, Eames,” said Arthur, and pushed his hair out of his eyes. It had been so long since it had been properly combed, properly gelled, properly _washed_. The humidity was making it a curly, unruly mess.

“It all turned out fine. You tied a tourniquet with your tie, didn’t you?”

“It was Hermes,” Arthur admitted miserably. “You owe me for that.”

“Yeah,” said Eames, and smiled a little bit. “I owe you a lot. Seriously. Thank you.”

Arthur nodded a little bit, awkwardly, and walked over to the window and looked out. The rain was in a lull, but the streets were still soaking wet, saturated from the rainy season. He felt a little bit like he was in the middle of an adrenaline crash, now that Eames was mainly out of the woods.

He said, “I need to run out and find us some provisions. Including more painkillers for you, if I can manage it.”

“Please manage it,” said Eames fervently.

“Can you handle being left alone?” said Arthur.

“I’m not an invalid, darling.”

“Yes, actually, you kind of are the very definition of an invalid right now.”

“Go,” Eames said grouchily. “Bring me back the nectar of the gods. I will endeavor to stay alive so as not to waste all of the effort you invested in me.”

“I don’t really know why I saved you,” lied Arthur.

Eames just gave him a look, a look that practically said _I know exactly why you saved me_ , which was terrifying to Arthur.

So Arthur ducked out into the damp aftermath of all that rain.

An hour later, the rain was no longer in a lull. The rain was coming down in sheets. Arthur had food and water and painkillers and he was walking back, keeping to the alleyways in order to stay out of sight from anyone who might still be looking for them.

And that was when he heard it. At first it was just an undertone under the rain, and Arthur thought he might be imagining it. But then the sound got louder and louder as Arthur got closer and closer, it was clearer and clearer, and Arthur stood in front of a lopsided pile of garbage and knew with great certainty that there was a baby crying in there.

Arthur looked around him. The alley was deserted, the rain was still pouring down, and he couldn’t just leave a _baby crying_ in a pile of garbage.

So he put down his own provisions and dug through the garbage and found the baby, wrapped in a pile of filthy rags and sobbing its head off. It saw Arthur and sobbed even harder, which didn’t exactly make Arthur feel confident as he pulled it out of a little cave of discarded crates and boxes.

The baby was tiny and light and sobbed and sobbed. Arthur held it gingerly, because he didn’t really know how to hold babies, but he supposed as long as he didn’t drop it, he was doing better than leaving it in a _pile of garbage_. Arthur looked at the baby in his arms and considered. Then he balanced the rest of his provisions and the still crying baby and cautiously walked over to the nearest door.

He knocked on it briskly and got no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer.

Frowning, he moved on to the next door. Knocking. No answer.

Frowning more, he moved on the next door, contemplating whether he should just knock it down. But this one was opened.

The old woman who opened it looked at the screaming baby in his arms. Her eyes widened with horror and she slammed the door on him before he could even get a word out.

Arthur looked down at the baby and said, “Who are you, huh? Why won’t anyone touch you?”

The baby cried.

Arthur took a deep breath and trudged in the direction of where he’d left Eames, baby nestled—very loudly—in his arms.

***

The baby didn’t cry the whole way. About halfway through the walk, it seemed to realize the crying was pointless and fell silent. Arthur, initially alarmed that maybe he had somehow accidentally killed it, peeked down to find the baby looking at him with appraisingly, as if trying to decide what it thought about the person now holding it. Arthur wanted to point out that he had rescued it from a trash heap but then thought possibly that might hurt the baby’s feelings and make it start crying again. So he just let it lay in his arms and silently judge him.

He walked in to the safe house to find Eames flipping his poker chip over his knuckles. Eames looked at him, then at his poker chip, then said, “I think my wound is infected.”

Arthur, who had barely even put down the bags he was carrying, never mind dealt with the baby, looked at him in alarm. “What? Why? What’s the matter?”

“I am hallucinating. I think I have a very high fever. It looks as if you are holding a _baby_.”

Arthur scowled at him and walked over. “I am holding a baby.”

Eames looked at the baby with something like horrified fascination. “You went out for _provisions_ ,” Eames reminded him. “Do you intend for us to eat the baby?”

“I found it in a pile of garbage,” explained Arthur. “It was crying.”

“And you thought, ‘You know who would be good at taking care of this baby? Me and Eames!’”

“There’s no one else to take care of it. No one would talk to me about it.”

“First of all, I assume the child’s not an it. Second of all…” Eames trailed off, staring at the baby.

“Second of all?” Arthur prompted after a second.

“It’s smiling at me.”

Arthur looked down at the baby, who was indeed smiling at Eames. Of course. Of course the baby would fucking fall in love with Eames at first sight. But then the baby shifted to look at Arthur and smiled wider and beat a fist toward him and actually _giggled_ at him. “Oh, my God,” said Arthur, shocked. “I think this baby _likes_ us.”

The baby looked between them and waved its hands and giggled very happily.

“It’s cute,” Eames allowed, studying the baby closely.

The baby blew a raspberry at Eames, spraying him with a generous amount of spit.

Eames squinted an eye shut and wiped at his face.

“I love this baby,” Arthur announced, not bothering to hide how amused he was.

“You’ve chosen poorly,” Eames told the baby. “You should have formed your alliance with me.”

The baby laughed uproariously at him.

“No, seriously, this baby is a fucking genius,” said Arthur, delighted.

“Is this _your_ baby?” Eames asked suspiciously. “This baby must have Arthur DNA. Only Arthur genes are impervious to my charms.”

“This baby is very charmed. This baby also just thinks you’re an idiot. Smartest baby ever. Can you hold it for a second?”

“As long as you don’t do anything to me,” Eames said to the baby.

The baby gurgled around the fist in its mouth.

“I don’t trust this baby,” Eames said dubiously, but settled it on his lap.

Arthur ignored him, moving over to the bags he’d carried in, digging out painkillers and water and carrying them over to Eames.

“Thanks,” Eames said, without looking up from his consideration of the baby in his arms.

“How old do you think it is?” Arthur asked.

“What makes you think I know anything about babies?”

“You think you know everything about everything.”

“Arthur is hilarious, isn’t he?” Eames said to the baby.

The baby blew another raspberry at him.

“I don’t understand why the baby hates me already,” complained Eames, and looked up at him. “What’s your plan?”

“I don’t have one,” Arthur admitted.

“You don’t have one,” repeated Eames.

“Shut up,” Arthur said defensively.

“You always have a plan.”

“I don’t have a plan for coming upon an abandoned and unwanted baby in a garbage pile.”

“Well, you need to get a plan fast. What are you going to feed this baby? What’s your plan for diapers?”

Arthur sighed and looked out at the pouring rain and said, “Do you think you’re capable of watching it while I go back out there?”

“ _Arthur_ ,” said Eames. “We cannot keep this baby.”

“Of course we’re not going to keep the baby. But what do you propose I do with it right now?”

“I don’t know. Take it to a hospital, maybe?” The baby was squirming a little bit, and Eames shifted to try to accommodate it.

Arthur leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, thinking, unhappy. “They’re going to ask so many questions at a hospital.”

“Leave it there and run away. Arthur. You are very good at running away. You ran away with a practically dead me in tow very effectively. Come and take your baby, it’s not comfortable.”

Arthur went and collected the baby from Eames’s lap. The baby sent him a wide, delighted smile. “What’s going to happen to it in a hospital?” asked Arthur.

“Probably medical professionals with _diapers_ and _formula_ will take care of it.”

“Right, but it’s a baby. It kind of needs to have a family.” Arthur shifted the baby so Eames could see its wide smile. How were you supposed to just abandon that smile to some hospital that might not even have the resources to deal with it?  

“Arthur,” said Eames. “Are you asking me to marry you and raise this child with you?”

Arthur frowned at him. “No. Would you be serious here for a second?”

“I’m being very serious. I’m the one who’s making sense right now. And frankly I don’t like it. Go back to being the sensible one, would you?”

“Maybe we can find it a family,” suggested Arthur, hopefully, looking at the baby’s wide, dark eyes.

“So you want to start an adoption agency, is that it?”

“No. I just…I’m the one who found the baby, it’s my responsibility. It was almost, like, fate.”

Eames stared at him. “Fate?” he said. “ _Fate_?” He looked at his poker chip again and murmured, “I don’t understand how I’m not dreaming.”

“Let’s skip over the rest of your dramatics here. Take the baby again so I can run out and get us more supplies.”

Eames took the baby and said, “Suddenly you believe in fate? I told you it was fate we should fuck and you didn’t believe in fate then.”

“Be good for Eames,” Arthur told the baby. “He’s incredibly annoying but you’ll learn to ignore ninety percent of what he says.”

The baby reached out and poked Arthur in the nose.

Arthur smiled at it. 


	2. Chapter 2

“It isn’t that you’re not cute,” Eames told the baby.

The baby sat on the curve of Eames’s stomach where Eames was awkwardly sprawled on the couch and chewed on its hand, regarding him thoughtfully.

“It’s just that Arthur’s lost his bloody mind. I think I may have pushed him over the edge by almost dying.”

The baby looked merely politely interested in the story of Eames almost dying.

“I guess you almost died, too,” Eames allowed, “being thrown in the trash heap like that. I guess that means we’ve got a lot in common, because Arthur saved both of us. I never thought about it before, but it’s possible Arthur has some kind of savior complex. It’s practically his whole job description: save everyone else from their idiocy. This is the man you have chosen to make your favorite, by the way. He’s going to make you start wearing ties before the day is out, mark my words.”

The baby didn’t look very concerned about this possibility. In fact, the baby looked a little snobbish about Eames’s lack of a tie. Eames was not understanding how beautifully this baby was already managing to channel Arthur.

“We can’t keep you,” Eames said. “I don’t know what Arthur’s thinking, but we can’t…” Eames paused, because maybe what Arthur was thinking was that _Arthur_ could keep this baby. There was no “we” in Arthur’s eyes, there never had been, but Arthur was a perfectly capable “I.”

For the first time since he had met Arthur, Eames considered the possibility that Arthur might _retire_. There was a possibility that Arthur would take this baby he’d found and go to one of his homes and just…become a completely respectable, completely ordinary person.

Eames stared in slack-jawed shock at the baby, who looked very unimpressed by Eames’s epiphany. But Arthur wouldn’t retire, would he? Arthur loved what he did. Arthur was very good at it. Arthur came alive when he was stalking around with a gun in his hand with chaos all around him. Arthur wouldn’t…

And what would Eames do if Arthur retired and he lost the opportunity to ferret him out and bribe Arthur’s teams into coming up with a reason to call in a very specific forger? Eames had been depending for a long time now on his ability to conjure himself a steady diet of Arthur when he needed it.

“I don’t think Arthur would retire,” Eames told the baby, as if the baby was disagreeing with him. The baby did seem to look skeptical. “He wouldn’t leave me.” And then he was appalled that he’d said that. “Oh, my God, don’t tell him I said that to you. Fuck. I am high on…cheap, terrible painkillers or something or…” Eames was _horrified_. Did he really think of Arthur leaving dreamsharing as leaving _him_? Oh, my _God_.

Eames banged his head back against the arm of the couch very gently and said to the baby, “Hey, I don’t suppose Arthur has said anything about me to you, has he? Did he happen to tell you that he loves me madly?”

The baby said something like _bababababa_.

Eames frowned. “I don’t know what that means. You’re not helpful.”

The baby blew another raspberry at him.

“That’s getting old,” Eames told it. “Don’t you know any other tricks?”

The baby responded with another raspberry.

“Christ, you are so much like Arthur, I’d have no doubts at all as to your paternity if I didn’t know Arthur’s way too uptight to ever let himself get laid,” grumbled Eames. Not that he was personally offended by that, of course. But whatever.

He shifted a little bit, trying to lay down a bit more. His leg was throbbing painfully and the pain relievers hadn’t helped at all and now he had a baby sprawled on him. Although, actually, when he shifted, it tipped the baby forward, and then the baby snuggled into his chest very naturally, as though it was used to doing that. The baby was a soft, warm bundle and babbled to itself with obvious joy and Eames said, with a little bit of dread sinking into him, “Fuck, you _are_ cute.”

Eames had never been able to find the key to getting Arthur to lose his head and fall in love. It was possible this baby had done it effortlessly, was Eames’s last conscious thought. 

***

Arthur got back soaked through to the skin, to find Eames and the baby both sleeping.

For a second he was annoyed, because this meant that anyone could have come upon them and killed both of them.

And then he reminded himself that they were both very alive and someone _could_ have killed them but no one had and so instead he sat on the floor and dripped into an Arthur-shaped puddle and watched Eames sleep with a baby on his chest. Arthur had seen Eames in countless different forms and faces, but he had never seen this and he didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Eames stirred and blinked his eyes open and looked at Arthur and said, “Oh, good, just you,” before closing his eyes again.

“Yes. You are truly exemplary at keeping watch.”

Eames chuckled. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Do you have any more painkillers?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, and took a closer look at Eames, who, upon reflection, was looking a bit paler than he had. Arthur brushed his hand up against Eames’s forehead as he handed across both painkillers and water, but it didn’t seem warm.

“I’m fine,” Eames said, lifting one hand off the baby to take first pills, then water, but he sounded weak and tired. “It just hurts like fuck. I’d kill for some morphine.”

“I should get you some,” Arthur said worriedly, going to check Eames’s wound.

“I’m not going to have you get arrested trying to steal drugs for me,” Eames said.

“Like I couldn’t steal you drugs without getting caught,” retorted Arthur, offended.

“I don’t want to be out of it,” Eames added. “Morphine makes my head a mess, and now you’ve gone and brought home this baby we have to take care of. Stop staring at my leg.”

Arthur stopped staring at his leg and went and sat back on a fresh spot on the floor that he hadn’t already dripped into. “The baby was good, I take it.”

“An angel,” said Eames.

“I knew it,” Arthur said, keeping his voice low for the baby’s sake. “I knew I would leave and you would win it over to your side.”

Eames chuckled a little bit. “I think I just exhausted the poor thing by talking to it a lot.”

“Your fatal attraction is always going to be the sound of your own voice,” remarked Arthur.

“I have a nice voice,” Eames said, and smiled at him. “How was your excursion?”

Arthur indicated the pile of things he brought back, lifting up many different types of diapers. “Did you know they come in different sizes?”

“Do they? Huh. I guess that makes sense.”

“And I found formula that we just have to mix with water, and some baby bottles, and I bought it a toy.” Arthur held it up.

Eames looked at it and said, “Is that a cat toy?”

“It was all they had. Do you think it’ll be able to tell?” Arthur asked anxiously. He’d debated about the purchase but he thought babies needed toys.

Eames smiled again and said, “I think it’ll do for now,” and then closed his eyes.

Arthur knew he must be tired and knew he should let him get back to sleep but he licked his lips and ventured, “You’re right, of course. I can’t keep this baby.”

There was a long moment of silence, then Eames opened his eyes and looked at him. Arthur thought it must be getting close to night, because the light in the room was growing dimmer. He said, “Arthur. I have long since stopped betting against you. There isn’t anything you _can’t_ do.”

“Right, but…” Arthur took a deep breath and tried to explain himself, because he knew Eames thought he was acting like a crazy person, and Arthur didn’t blame him. “Someone took this baby and threw it out with the garbage, Eames. And I may not know much about babies but I know that’s not a newborn there. That’s a baby that someone should have had time to get to know, time to love. And they threw it out. I guess I don’t want to leave open the possibility it could happen again. I’m a point man. I don’t like uncertainties. I want to find a family who will never do that to this baby. Not just leave it at an anonymous hospital.”

“It’s fine, Arthur,” Eames said, still looking across at him. “You don’t need to justify it to me.”

Arthur felt like he kind of did, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. But he said, “Sorry. You’re tired. You should go back to sleep.”

“Mmm,” said Eames, and closed his eyes and snuggled a little more into the couch, and the baby in turn seemed to snuggle a little further into Eames’s chest, its bow of a mouth opening on a sigh of contentment.

Arthur sat in a puddle on the floor and watched the two of them sleeping and rolled his die, just to check. 

***

It was clear that Arthur had no sodding clue how to change a nappy. Eames sprawled on his side and was actually distracted from the pain in his leg by the sight of Arthur struggling his way through it. The baby had been crying to be changed, but at Arthur’s ineptness the baby actually went silent and stared up at him in a moment of shock, and then resumed crying, this time a crying that was clearly offended.

Eames bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

It didn’t matter. Arthur said, “Shut up,” to him, without looking up from where he was struggling with a variety of nappies, trying to find the right size.

“I am not saying a word,” Eames said innocently.

“You couldn’t do a better job,” Arthur said, and gestured at him with the dirty nappy, as if it was a threat.

“I completely agree with you, love,” said Eames, because he did.

“Well,” said Arthur, finishing up with a little flourish. “At least we now know: she’s a girl.” Arthur wrapped her in a kitchen towel he’d bought at the store, which had the advantage of at least being dry, unlike anything else around them. “Now the question is if she’s hungry.” Arthur set the baby carefully down on the floor, turning to his bottles and formula.

The baby promptly flipped herself over, got on her hands and knees, and looked very, very determined about moving, face scrunched up in concentration.

“Look at that,” Eames remarked. “Another trick.”

Arthur looked up from the formula that he was making with the precision of a science experiment and spotted the baby and looked alarmed. “What is she doing?”

“I think she’s trying to crawl.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Arthur pointed out, after the baby rocked backward and then forward but still didn’t manage to move.

“I think crawling probably takes a bit of effort to get the hang of,” said Eames.

“It’s like this,” Arthur said, dropping to his hands and knees and _literally crawling_ into the baby’s field of vision.

Eames stared at him, and the thing was, Eames hated the fact that he had been shot and he hated the fact that they were holed up in this miserable place and he hated the fact that he was putting Arthur in danger the longer he was incapacitated, but he had never hated the current uselessness of his leg as much as he did in that moment because he wanted nothing more than to roll off the couch and tackle Arthur to the floor and kiss him _a lot_.

The baby looked at Arthur but just frowned.

“I think she thinks you’re an idiot,” Eames said, to try to distract himself from how ridiculously, bloody adorable Arthur looked. “She’s wondering why you’re crawling around on your hands and knees on a filthy floor in a ten-thousand-dollar suit when you know how to walk.”

“First of all, this suit is already a lost cause,” said Arthur, now crawling in practiced circles around the baby. “Second of all, this is how babies learn. Through demonstration.”

“Ah, you changed your first nappy, and now you’re a baby expert,” remarked Eames. “Maybe you should tempt her with her cat toy.”

The baby rocked back and forth again, got nowhere, and uttered a cry of unmistakable frustration.

“It’s okay,” Arthur said, and gathered her up onto his lap. “We’ll try again tomorrow.” And then Arthur, like it was the world’s most natural thing, kissed the baby’s chubby cheek.

He seemed to realize what he’d done, freezing, and then he carefully stood and held the baby out to Eames. “Here. You can feed her.”

Eames didn’t bring up what had just happened, and took the baby more out of reflex. “You don’t want to feed her?”

“In a second. Let me clean up here.” He was making excuses, that much was obvious, and Eames recalled thinking that this baby was going to effortlessly rattle Arthur, and she was already doing it.

So Arthur gave Eames the bottle, and Eames offered it up to the baby. “Here you go, Lucky,” he said. “How about a bit of food?”

Arthur stilled and looked over at them. “What did you just call her?”

The baby took the proffered nipple and sucked greedily. Eames smiled at her. “Lucky,” he said. “I’ve decided to call her Lucky.”

“What? No.” Arthur sounded horrified. “What kind of name is that? That’s something you’d name a _pet_.”

“I didn’t say it was her name. Calm down, petal. It’s just what I’m _calling_ her.”

“You never call anybody anything appropriate,” Arthur complained.

“It’s totally appropriate,” Eames said. “She’s very lucky. You happened to come along and pass her pile of garbage at just the right time. And now she’s got the most capable man in the world running point on keeping her alive.”

Arthur snorted, still organizing things. Eames knew he was doing it just to keep his hands busy. “I don’t even know if she’s supposed to be eating something other than formula. I don’t feel very much like the world’s best point man right now.”

“The formula will do for her for now. I wish it would do for us. When do you think’s the next time we get a decent meal?”

Arthur stopped fiddling and sat on the floor and sighed. “When are you going to become mobile again?”

“Probably Lucky will be mobile before me,” Eames remarked, and tried not to be bitter. He just didn’t do well being injured like this.

Well. Not true. He’d be doing very well if they were in the South of France being waited on hand and foot.

“I’ve got to come up with a name for her that’s not ‘Lucky,’” said Arthur, rubbing at his forehead. “That is just a terrible name.”

“I am open to suggestions,” said Eames.

Arthur sighed again and said, “I don’t have any. I don’t know. Fuck. I never thought I’d have to name a baby. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Anyway,” said Eames, watching him closely, “it doesn’t really matter, because the family you find for her will name her, right?”

“Right,” said Arthur. “Right. Absolutely. You’re right.” Arthur nodded firmly.

Eames dropped that particular topic. He looked back down at Lucky in his arms. Her hands were up around the bottle to keep it in place, as if she was worried Eames might try to take it away. He said, “It’s just something for us to call her while we have her, because everyone deserves to be called something unique and lovely. It’s how they know they’re important. You’re important, Lucky. You might not have thought it until now, but you absolutely are, hmm?”

Lucky didn’t look moved by the proclamation. Lucky just kept sucking away at the bottle. Her expression said, _Yeah, whatever, strange man that doesn’t shut up, just give me my food_.

She was just _so Arthur_ , Eames thought, with astonished fondness, and brushed a finger over the dimples of her tiny knuckles.

“You’re good with kids,” remarked Arthur.

“I am good with everyone, darling. Everyone but stubborn men named Arthur.” Lucky had finished up the formula and was now sucking at nothing but air. Nevertheless Eames practically had to wrestle the nipple out of her mouth. “I think she wants more,” Eames remarked, holding up the empty bottle, as Lucky screamed her displeasure.

“Jesus,” said Arthur, giving her a look as he set about making more, “is that necessary?”

“Look.” Eames held Lucky up so she could see. “Arthur is making more for you. He’s going to do it very slowly and carefully and precisely as if he is mixing nitroglycerine, but that’s just Arthur for you.”

Arthur glared at him from underneath the tumble of curls on his forehead. Arthur’s hair had been a disaster ever since Eames had regained consciousness. Eames was a little in love with it, but Eames was a little in love with everything about Arthur.

Lucky squirmed and screamed right in Eames’s ear, and Eames said, “It’ll be better when you can crawl to your food, Lucky, won’t it?”

“Here,” Arthur said, in annoyance, but it seemed to be annoyance with Eames. “Let me see her. You’re making it worse.”

Eames was surprised. “How am I making it worse?”

But Arthur sat on the floor and tucked Lucky into the crook of his arm and stuck the nipple in her mouth and said, “There, there, was Eamesie tormenting you with out-of-reach food?”

“ _Eamesie_?” said Eames in shock.

“Everyone deserves to be called something unique and lovely,” said Arthur, grinned up at him. “It’s how they know they’re important.”

Eames’s heart kind of stopped. Nothing to be alarmed about. Surely it was normal for your heart to stop in that kind of situation. He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t want to worry Arthur by saying, _You, teasing me, grinning at me, just like that, makes my heart stop_. He wanted Arthur to keep doing that, and surely he’d be discouraged if he thought he was making Eames’s heart stop.

So Arthur, oblivious, dropped his gaze back down to the baby and said, “The thing about crawling is you’ve got to coordinate one hand at a time. I think you’re trying to move both at once and it’s never going to work.”

Lucky gazed up at him, enraptured. Arthur’s dimples were showing, so Eames didn’t blame her.

_He’s going to get attached_ , thought Eames, and then corrected himself, _No, he’s already attached. He’s already in sodding, bloody love with her_. Eames would have said that no, never, Arthur could not fall in love so quickly, Eames had been working away at him for _years_ , but the proof was right there in front of him. Arthur was attached. Arthur was never going to give this baby up. Arthur was going to name her and cuddle her and leave dreamsharing, leave Eames, fall out of touch with him and maybe think of him every so often and try to look him up on fucking Facebook or some such bloody, fucking nonsense.

“You’ll be crawling and I’ll figure out some way to get Eames on crutches and then I will get all of us out of this country and back home and it will not be raining, hmm?” Arthur was saying to Lucky.

Lucky made happy noises at him around her bottle and Eames closed his eyes and wished really very hard for some morphine. 


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur thought the table could more accurately be called “firewood” but, whatever, he didn’t have a lot of choice, so he was sitting at a table that was so uneven it kept tipping every time he tried to write. Across the room, Eames was doing magic tricks with his poker chip for Lucky’s benefit.

Not Lucky. The baby. Her name was not Lucky.

Arthur turned away from his furtive spying on Eames with the baby—surely Eames was not that naturally good with babies? Eames was _the most annoying person_ —to look at the list on his left, which was a list of possible things to call Lucky while they had her that were not Lucky. The list wasn’t very long. Arthur had never given much thought to what names he liked and didn’t like. And, anyway, Eames was right and once they found her a family the family would want to re-name her and so all they needed was something to call her in the meantime.

So Arthur’s list consisted entirely of the name Emily—because, if pressed, he supposed he thought he would say that Emily was really a very nice name—and Bonnie, which he was basing on _bonne chance_ , because he thought it acknowledged Eames’s idea of naming her for luck while being a little less of a dragged-home-kitten name than Lucky.

Although, Arthur supposed he _had_ kind of dragged the baby home like a kitten.

Lucky giggled over by Eames, and Arthur couldn’t help but glance up. Who knew he was going to develop a huge weakness to the sight of Eames with the baby? It was all very distracting.

“That’s what impresses you?” Eames was saying to her, apparently oblivious to Arthur’s attention. “That isn’t even really a magic trick. Look, that’s just me moving the poker chip around in front of you. See, you can see my hand and everything.” Eames zoomed the poker chip through the air and dipped it toward Lucky’s nose.

The baby, who was sitting on the floor by the couch on one of the kitchen towels Arthur had bought for her, laughed and laughed.

“Lucky,” said Eames, sounding fondly exasperated. “Demand better magic.” He reached out and tweaked at Lucky’s nose, an adorable little gesture that made Arthur’s hand oddly tighten around his pencil, mimicking the sudden tightness that ran through his chest.

Lucky waved her cat toy at Eames enthusiastically.

Arthur took a deep breath and looked away. He had work to do. A lot of really serious work. He pushed aside the list of possible names for Lucky and pulled over the list of things he had to do to get them safely out of the country. Arthur had destroyed their phones first thing, worried about being tracked, but now he thought he needed to go out and get them some means of communication. And he needed to get Eames crutches somewhere. And he needed some way to carry Lucky around that wasn’t just his arms but wasn’t as cumbersome as a carriage.

“Darling,” said Eames, “stop frowning so thunderously and come and teach Lucky how to crawl again.”

Arthur looked up. Lucky had abandoned her cat toy and shifted to her hands and knees, looking once again determined to establish some kind of movement.

Arthur didn’t even think twice about dropping to the floor and crawling over to her. She looked at him with fierce determination, and Arthur smiled and thought that Lucky was actually a little of a misnomer: this kid was going to make her own luck, Arthur could already tell.

“Look,” he said, sitting cross-legged a short distance from her and leaning over to tap her right hand. “It’s just one hand at a time. Just this one hand here.”

Lucky looked doubtful about his crawling knowledge and rocked back and forth, apparently trying to just launch herself forward.

“Christ, she is stubborn like you,” Arthur remarked to Eames, watching the baby’s continued attempts. “I’m not going to let her hang out with you anymore.”

Eames snorted. “Oh, yeah. There’s no way she could have picked up stubbornness from you, right?”

“I’m not stubborn,” said Arthur.

“Arthur, my sweet, you were voted the most stubborn person in all of dreamsharing.”

“I’m just focused, there’s a—” Arthur’s automatic protest died on his lips as he processed what Eames had said. “Wait a second, really? Is that a thing?”

Eames laughed so hard Arthur thought he was going to fall off the couch. Which would serve him right, frankly.

Arthur scowled at him.

“No, that’s not a thing!” Eames gasped. “You should have seen the look on your face!”

Eames’s sudden bout of hysteria had startled Lucky, who looked at Eames and then looked back at Arthur as if for an explanation.

“I cannot explain him,” Arthur told her. “He is inexplicable. The best plan of attack is to ignore him. We’re going to abandon him here to fend for himself while we make our escape to Arizona.”

“Is Arizona where you’re aiming for?” asked Eames.

“I am going anywhere where there is sun. If I never see rain again ever in my life, I think I’d be okay.” Lucky tried—and failed—to launch herself forward again. “Honestly, Lucky, if you’d just _listen_ to me on the one-hand thing,” Arthur told her, and patiently tapped her right hand again. “Just this hand. Just this one.”

“Maybe she’s left-handed,” suggested Eames.

“Okay, just this one, then,” said Arthur, tapping at her left hand. “Just move this one first, and then the other one.”

Lucky gave him a look that said, _If you’d stop interfering, I could totally get this on my own_.

Arthur knew that look. And not from looking in the mirror, either.

Although it was possible Eames had a point about that (which Arthur would never, ever, ever acknowledge).

Arthur leaned back onto his hands, leaving Lucky to her own scientific method on the subject of crawling, and said, “You know those things you strap onto you and you kind of carry the baby on your chest?”

“I guess,” said Eames.

“What do you think those are called in Spanish?”

“When I learned Spanish, I neglected to learn baby vocabulary,” said Eames. “However, if you would like me to come with you and flirt with some of the store clerks, I am very fluent in Spanish flirtation.”  

Arthur rolled his eyes. “You _think_ you are. Eames is the sort of man whose terrible lines you’ll never fall for, right, Lucky?” said Arthur to the baby.

The baby ignored him in favor of rocking back and forth a couple more times.

“They’re not terrible lines, they’re really excellent lines,” said Eames.

“You’ll see right through them,” continued Arthur to the baby, ignoring Eames.

“It’s a good idea, getting one of those backpack baby things,” said Eames. “That way I could carry her for you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to help you on crutches.

“Yes,” Arthur agreed. “Speaking of. Crutches are on my list of first necessary acquisitions. We need to get you mobile. So stand up.”

Eames gave him a startled look. “Stand up?”

Arthur regarded him thoughtfully. After the first initial bathroom situations that had been painful for both of them, Arthur had acquiesced to Eames’s insistence that he was at least well enough to have earned privacy in that respect. Which meant that Arthur hadn’t personally seen Eames shift position much in a little while.

Eames said, “Just steal me a set that you would use. We’re the same height, and it’s not like you’re going to have a ton of choice.”  

Arthur stood and walked over to the couch. Eames looked forcibly casual and unconcerned, which meant that Eames was kind of terrified. Of what? wondered Arthur. Terrified that he wasn’t recovering quickly enough from almost dying, when Arthur had been unable to get him to a hospital and instead stuck him in a filthy hovel and hoped that basic Advil would be enough to get them through? If anybody was at fault for this situation, it was definitely Arthur’s standard of care and not Eames’s rate of healing.

But that didn’t change the fact that Arthur needed Eames to push himself just a little bit here. Lucky’s addition to their party made Arthur even more nervous over how long they’d been standing still. Whoever had thrown Lucky away had been powerful enough to merit terror in the people around the area.

“Come on,” Arthur said to Eames, keeping his voice light, and held out a hand.

“Right,” said Eames, and cleared his throat. “Arthur. I don’t want to hold you and Lucky back—”

“You’re not holding us back,” Arthur said harshly. “Shut up. I am going to get all of us out of this place if I have to carry both of you every step of the way, okay? Now stand up.”

Eames hesitated. “I don’t think I can—”

“Of course you can,” Arthur said, and he kept his voice harsh, because Eames needed this right now, he thought. Arthur could do coddling when it came to Eames. It actually was his natural instinct when it came to Eames. But sometimes Eames needed a jolt. So Arthur gave him the jolt. He grabbed his arm and pulled him up, without warning.

Eames should have been too heavy for this, and Eames should have been powerful enough to resist, but Eames was weak and off-balance and after a surprised exclamation he just put his hands out quickly to catch himself on Arthur’s shoulders.

“Fuck,” he said thickly, and his face had drained of all color, and Arthur felt a twinge of remorse for the amount of pain that movement must have caused. But this was the problem, Arthur thought. He was too quick not to push Eames because of his weakness for him. “Are you out of your mind?” Eames demanded.

“Yes,” said Arthur, refusing to let himself cuddle Eames in and apologize. “Put your weight in your good leg.”

“Arthur—” Eames began.

“Do it,” commanded Arthur, and Eames winced a little bit but Arthur could feel the shift in weight on his shoulders. “See?” said Arthur, relieved and unable to quite hide it. “You’re fine.”

“You’re a lunatic,” Eames huffed, out of breath from the effort of staying upright. “There is no way in which I am ‘fine’ right now. I’m a fucking mess and I’m going to get you and Lucky killed.”

“You’re fine,” said Arthur again, looking at him. Eames’s hands were still clutching at his shoulders, which meant their faces were very close, and Eames’s eyes, all gray and blue and green, filled up Arthur’s vision, dusted with the gold of his ridiculously long eyelashes. Arthur was used to those eyes. Arthur would have missed those beautiful eyes.

Oh, who was he fucking kidding, Arthur was completely enamored of those eyes and Arthur had gone a little off the deep end over the idea of possibly never seeing them again.

It must have shown in his face because Eames said, softly, “Arthur,” as if to get his attention away from those blood-soaked moments of panic after the bullets had rung out. Arthur blinked to refocus, and Eames smiled a small smile and said, “I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, and wanted to collapse onto Eames, wanted to press his face into Eames’s neck and breathe him in and have him be real and solid, right there, warm and alive and willing to fold Arthur in and just tell him that it was all going to be okay.  

Sometimes Arthur needed to be told that. Sometimes he hated that he was always the one saying it for everyone else’s benefit.

“Arthur,” said Eames, slowly, and those eyes were wandering all over Arthur’s face in that forger’s way of taking everything in. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Yes,” Arthur lied.

“Liar,” said Eames, evenly, and held his gaze.

Arthur changed the subject. “Do you have connections here that can make us passports? Us and Lucky?”

Eames, eyes narrow, nodded. “I think so. I hope so. The population of Nicaragua has not lately been very welcoming to me.” Eames indicated his leg.

Arthur nodded and said, “We have to take our chances. I don’t see another way.”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Eames said.

Arthur shook his head, because he did not want to hear that.

“I’m sorry I’m so fucking useless to you right now while you’re trying to take care of everything the way you usually do. I’ve made your job a million times harder, and you didn’t have to stop to make sure I was okay, and—”

“Shut up,” said Arthur. “Of course I did. You would have done the same for me. Stop apologizing. Don’t you dare stand there and apologize to me for _being alive_ , do you hear me?”

There was a long moment of silence. It sounded like a loud silence, and Arthur realized he might have shouted that last bit. Eames’s eyes flickered away, toward Lucky, and Arthur winced a bit and stole a glance her way as well. She had rolled herself onto her back and she was staring at Arthur with her mouth open in shock. Arthur felt _terrible_.

“Arthur, look at me,” Eames said quietly.

Arthur closed his eyes instead. “Please stop apologizing. I’ve got this. I’m handling this. You’re getting better. Look how long you’ve been standing. We’re going to—”

“Arthur, look at me,” said Eames again, so Arthur did, but it was kind of a glare, because he didn’t want Eames to think he was happy about being ordered around like that.

Then Eames said, “You’re doing an amazing job right now and we owe you our lives and it’s all going to be okay.”

And abruptly, just like that, Arthur thought he might _cry_. What was _wrong_ with him? He couldn’t even come up with anything to say because he thought if he opened his mouth he would just… _cry_. He blinked at Eames in exhausted bewilderment.

“You need to get some sleep, love,” Eames said, and astonishingly _kissed his forehead_. “Even you can’t do all of this on no sleep. Leave me with a bottle and a nappy and a gun nearby and I’ll watch Lucky and I’ll make sure she doesn’t crawl before you wake up.”

“Her name’s not Lucky,” said Arthur, because Arthur was nothing if not very good at fighting losing battles.

“Of course it isn’t,” Eames agreed easily. “Now go gather me some supplies and then go lie down.”

“I can’t,” Arthur said. “I need to get us…” Arthur couldn’t remember what he needed to get them. He looked at Eames, still leaning heavily on him, and said, “Crutches. I need to get you crutches. And I need to get us a phone. And I need to figure out what to call that baby backpack thing in Spanish.”

“Yes, darling,” Eames said. “In a few hours. Take a nap.”

Arthur had not been tired until the moment Eames had said he was tired. Now he was so tired he felt like he was seeing double. He frowned at Eames and said, “Did you hypnotize me?”

Eames looked bemused. “What?”

“Never mind,” said Arthur, and helped him settle back onto the couch.

“You should put me on the floor so you can have the couch.”

Arthur ignored him and gathered up everything Lucky might need. And the gun.

Then he went over to Lucky. “Sorry for yelling,” he said.

Lucky just smiled at him. Apparently she was quick to forgive. He picked Lucky up and settled her back on the floor right next to Eames on the couch. Lucky waved her cat toy at him and then stuck it in her mouth.

“Should she be eating a cat toy?” asked Arthur.

“Arthur, darling, honestly, you are going to worry about all these things after you sleep, okay? Shut off that brain.”

“It doesn’t shut off,” said Arthur, sprawling onto the floor next to Lucky and just _looking_ at her.

She smiled happily at him, almost wriggling with delight, evidently over the sight of _him_. Arthur smiled back helplessly.

“I bet I could make it shut off,” said Eames, and Arthur looked at him just in time to catch the leer he sent in his direction.

“Ugh,” said Arthur, “did you seriously just proposition me, in front of the baby, with the state you’re in?”

“It’s my _leg_ that got injured, petal.”

“If I go to sleep, will you shut up?” asked Arthur.

“No, but you won’t have to listen to me anymore.”

“Sold,” mumbled Arthur, and closed his eyes. 

***

Arthur looked to be sound asleep, but Eames tested that by saying to the baby, “Let me tell you all about Arthur’s unhealthy obsession with Dominic Cobb. He’s _ridiculous_ over Cobb. He’s, like, all slobbery and tail-wagging over him.”

Arthur didn’t stir, and there was no way Arthur wouldn’t have stirred if he’d been awake for _that_. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself, much as he might have tried. Eames knew Arthur.

So Eames took a deep breath.

“The thing is, Lucky,” he said. “You need to keep an eye on Arthur, because if you don’t watch him closely, he will just work himself to death. You have to say things like, ‘Goodness, Arthur, isn’t it time for a sandwich? Or a drink? Or a nap?’ He just forgets that he’s human sometimes. Or resents it. Or something.”

Lucky was looking at him, still gnawing on her cat toy, and she looked as if she was listening closely.

“I should give you all of my Arthur tips,” remarked Eames. “Because it’s going to be your job to look after him. He’s going to think that he’s looking after you, and he’ll do a brilliant job of that, but he needs looking after, too, so let’s you and I make a pact that you won’t forget that and you’ll watch out for him. I prefer for Arthur to have lots of people watching his back.”

Lucky took her cat toy out of her mouth and babbled some sort of baby nonsense at Eames very seriously.

Eames took this as agreement to their pact. “Good,” he said. “Thank you.”

Lucky replaced the cat toy in her mouth.

Eames considered what he could share about Arthur that Lucky would find useful. He started with, “He loves coffee. Really expensive, freshly ground coffee. He actually drinks it black, he loves it so much. He’ll drink horrible coffee, too, though, because he likes to think he’s not a snob even though he is totally a snob about almost everything.”

Lucky gnawed on her cat toy and made a sound Eames interpreted as encouraging.

So he went on. “Probably that coffee information won’t be useful to you for a long time. Hmm. Oh, here’s something you might like to know right away. He feels cold acutely. He always has an extra layer on that none of the rest of us would be wearing. He’ll probably keep you all bundled up in, like, designer baby blankets or something. Do they have those? If they have those, Arthur will find them for you.”

Lucky made an inquisitive sound around her cat toy.

Eames answered the question he imagined her to be asking. “I think he grew up in southern California, although he’s never told me and he’s covered his tracks really, really well. But he does everything really well. He’ll do a wonderful job raising you.”

Lucky was still gnawing on her cat toy, but she no longer seemed to be paying attention to Eames. Her gaze had shifted over to Arthur.

Eames looked at her for a little while, feeling melancholy. Then he cleared his throat and kept talking, because now that he’d started he felt like he couldn’t stop. He felt a little better when he was talking than he did when he was sitting in silence brooding. “Anyway, I think he’s used to warmth and sunshine. Cold weather and rainy weather both put him in a terrible mood and he sulks. But he kind of unwinds if you stick him in some sunshine, a little like a cat. And he loves dessert. He can’t resist it. If you ever upset him, find him some chocolate and you’ll win him back over. He’ll pretend you haven’t but he cannot stay angry at people who bring him chocolate. Oh, and this is important: he has a habit of rolling his eyes when he should be smiling, don’t take it personally.”

Lucky tore her attention away from Arthur, looking back at Eames.

Eames said, “He’s got a kind heart, though I’m sure he’ll try to be stern with you because he’ll think that’s what you need. But you’re clever, so you’ll see through it fairly quickly, and you’ll realize that if he loves you, then he’s utterly devoted to you, and he will do the stupidest things for you, and if I hear that you take advantage of that, I will track you down and give you a talking-to, don’t think I won’t. And I give really threatening talking-tos. Or, well, I’ve never given anyone a talking-to before but I bet I could give really threatening ones if I put my mind to it, so. Watch your step, young lady.” Eames waved his finger around in her general direction, hoping he looked impressive.

Lucky put her cat toy down on the ground and narrowed her eyes, as if acknowledging the seriousness of Eames’s threat.

Eames, satisfied that she understood the importance of what he’d just said, said a little more gently, to soothe her, “You’ll be okay, the two of you. I’ll get us our passports and Arthur will get us out and he probably will take you to Arizona because he really does like hot, dry weather.”

Lucky looked back at Arthur and then shifted to her hands and knees, trying to launch herself the few inches over to where he was sleeping.

Eames watched, curious as to whether she would make it. “One hand at a time,” he suggested. “Like he was trying to teach you.”

Eames didn’t expect her to pay attention, but then, abruptly, she managed enough of a crawl that she reached Arthur. It was more kind of a jerk over the short distance between them, but it got her into the curve of Arthur’s body. Eames lifted his eyebrows and thought he was going to have to lie to Arthur about how she’d got over to him, because he didn’t want Arthur to feel bad about missing that first rough forward movement.

Lucky snuggled down against Arthur, and Eames thought that she must have been used to sleeping with someone, because she did it so naturally. This baby had had someone keeping her near all the time. So how had she ended up in a pile of garbage?

Eames had no idea. Except that she had, and Arthur had walked by, and he looked at Lucky, who had stuck her hand in her mouth and was contentedly babbling to herself, and he said, “You adore him already, don’t you?”

Lucky looked over at him, her eyes wide and dark, and she kept babbling around her hand.

Eames sighed and said, “Yeah, join the club.”


	4. Chapter 4

“What the fuck is that thing?” was what Eames said.

Arthur sighed and said, “I went to a lot of trouble to get this, you know. You could at least be impressed.”

“I am. Very impressed. Always very impressed with you. As is Lucky. But what the fuck _is_ it?”

Arthur looked over at where Eames was sitting up on the couch, Lucky on his lap. Arthur had insisted Eames spend more time sitting up. In a little while, Arthur was going to insist that Eames practice using the crutches Arthur had acquired. In the meantime, though, they were going to tackle the pile of cords and fabric that Arthur had dropped in the middle of the floor.

“It’s one of those baby backpack things,” Arthur said, and sat by the pile, refusing to be daunted.

Eames continued to eye it with concern. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” answered Arthur shortly.

“It’s just that…I’m not sure Lucky wants to be carried in that thing. I’m not sure I’d _let_ you carry her in that thing.”

“It isn’t a thing yet,” Arthur pointed out. “I have to make it into a thing.”

“Ah,” said Eames.

There was a moment of silence, while Arthur poked and prodded at the different cords and looped them around each other.

Eames said, “Did it come with directions?”

“It can’t be that difficult, Eames,” said Arthur. “It isn’t rocket science. How old do you think she is? I need to come up with an age for the papers to get her out of the country.”

“I don’t know. Eight months? I mean, how old are babies when they start crawling? How old were James and Philippa?”

“I don’t remember,” said Arthur, pulling one cord through another one and pulling hard. “You think they start crawling at eight months?”

“I have no idea, Arthur, I really don’t know. But they crawl before they walk, right? And aren’t they walking when they’re a year old?”

“If normal babies crawl at eight months, I bet she’s only seven months, because she’s clearly very smart,” remarked Arthur.

“What age do you think she’s going to start getting hair?” asked Eames.

“She has hair,” Arthur protested.

“She has a wisp of hair, Arthur. A single wisp.”

“Stop it, it’s beautiful. Her hair’ll grow in. And it doesn’t matter, she’d be beautiful even if it never grew in.” Arthur made a knot that promptly fell apart and _felt_ Eames’s skepticism that he was going to conquer this thing. “Stop watching me,” he commanded.

“Darling, there aren’t exactly a lot of options entertainment-wise here,” said Eames.

“This isn’t entertainment.”

“Try putting it on yourself,” said Eames reasonably.

“Eames, _this isn’t entertainment_.”

“I think it’ll help. You’re trying to put it together in the abstract. Put it on you.”

“How?” asked Arthur. “The cords don’t even connect enough for me to do that.”

“I think I’d call them straps.”

“Whatever,” said Arthur, and randomly stuck his head in between two cords or straps or ropes or whatever you would call them. And then he tried to hook one up into another one around his waist. And surely that piece of padded fabric was supposed to hold the baby and so therefore shouldn’t be oddly tipped sideways like that.

Arthur finally looked up at Eames. Eames’s mouth was pursed, as if he was biting his cheek with the effort of not saying anything or with not dissolving into laughter. Lucky, for her part, just looked chiefly perplexed by what he was doing. She was staring at him, mouth a little open and drooling.

Eames said, carefully, “Arthur, can I make a suggestion?”

“A helpful suggestion?” asked Arthur, eyes narrow.

Eames considered. “I think so.”

Arthur was dubious but he said, after a moment, “Fine. What’s your suggestion?”

“You’d be better off just slinging your belt around your shoulder and balancing her in that, frankly.”

“But then I wouldn’t have a belt,” said Arthur.

“Oh, my God, this isn’t a _fashion show_ , Arthur, for Christ’s sake.”

Arthur sighed and walked over to the couch and crouched down so he could be on Lucky’s eye level. “What do you think, Lucky? Is there any life situation that calls for the faux pas of wearing neither belt nor suspenders?”

Eames dipped his head down so he could say into Lucky’s ear, “Say ‘Yes, Arthur, there are many, many life situations that call for that.’”

Lucky looked undecided, and then she looked at Arthur and broke into a wide smile and reached for him.

“Ah,” said Arthur, delighted, and took her and kissed her cheek. “She’s saying ‘Please get me away from this horrible man who doesn’t know how to wear clothing properly.’”

“No, she’s saying, ‘I love you anyway, even if you’re not wearing a belt.’ Let me see that thing, I’ll see if I can help you.”

Arthur handed across the pile of randomness that was supposed to be a baby backpack and let Eames worry about it while he busied himself pretending to eat Lucky’s fingers, which caused her to laugh and laugh.

Eames said, “I think you’re right, the baby must sit in this padded cloth bit.”

“Right,” Arthur agreed. “And the straps must therefore go around your body.”

Eames was halfway in and out of a variety of straps, frowning. “How?”

“I don’t think it’s following the laws of physics.”

“We’re not in a dream, Arthur, it has to follow the laws of physics.”

“Then how do you suggest it goes?” asked Arthur.

Eames pulled a couple more straps this way and that, then said, “I’m usually much better at bondage than this. I just want to make sure you realize that.”

Arthur chuckled because he couldn’t help it. He was stranded in a hovel in the middle of Nicaragua’s rainy season, he hadn’t had a shower in far too long and his clothes were a mess, but Lucky was warm and content up against him, smiling at him, and Eames was flirting with him, and Arthur kind of thought he might be the happiest he’d ever been in his life. “Noted,” he said, and nibbled at Lucky’s fingers again.

Eames said, “Maybe we need to try it with her in it?”

“You’re going to stick her in that thing and hope she doesn’t fall?” said Arthur.

“Well, you’ll hold her, won’t you? Come over here and be helpful.”

“Eamesie has a terrible idea but I’m going to humor him,” Arthur told Lucky.

“Stop with the ‘Eamesie’ thing,” said Eames.

Arthur was never going to stop with the “Eamesie” thing, so he ignored that and simply held Lucky out over Eames’s lap. “What’s your proposal here?”

“Well, her legs have to go like this, right?” Eames worked the piece of fabric up over Lucky’s legs.

Lucky gave him a look that said _Are you kidding me?_ And then turned it on Arthur. _Is he kidding me?_

But then, annoyingly, with Lucky’s body forcing the fabric into some kind of structure, the way that the straps needed to be set up became abruptly obvious.

“Oh,” said Arthur, blinking.

“There you go,” said Eames, pleased. “Put your arm through there and turn around and let me strap you in. Again, just so you know, when I say stuff like that in bed, I make it much sexier.”

Arthur clasped Lucky to his chest and let Eames fiddle around with the straps along his back.

Eames said, “Okay, how’s that feel? Once again, something I would say sexier if—”

“Yes, yes,” said Arthur impatiently, turning to face him. “Let’s just assume you could make everything you say to me sexier if you really tried. And I don’t know how it feels. How’s it supposed to feel?”

“Does it feel secure?” asked Eames.

“No,” said Arthur. Because it didn’t.

“Well, it’s as tight as it can be.” Eames paused and looked at Arthur.

“I notice you leaving out the double entendre and appreciate it,” said Arthur.

“Thank you, darling. As long as you appreciate my sacrifices. Let go of her.”

Arthur chewed on his lip and looked down at Lucky. They were at a funny angle, so he couldn’t really see her face. “Does she look terrified?”

“She looks like she thinks we’re crazy, but that’s pretty much her standard look, isn’t it?”

Arthur took a deep breath and began to hold her a little less tightly, and then a little less tightly, and then still less tightly, until finally he wasn’t holding her at all and the baby backpack was doing all the work.

“Oh,” he said, pleasantly surprised. “Look at that.”

“Excellent. One step closer to getting out of here.” Eames smiled at him.

Arthur said, “Let’s try this on you.”

Once they’d gotten the hang of it, it wasn’t as hard to take the thing off and put it back on as the first time had been. Arthur was confident it was going to work well for their getaway. He helped unstrap Lucky from the contraption and left her on Eames’s lap. “Once you practice walking with the crutches, I think you’ll be able to handle it,” he said confidently, as he walked across the room to retrieve the cheap prepaid cell phone he’d bought them.

“Of course,” said Eames. “Hear that? Your first illegal crossing of a border. It’s a major milestone, Lucky. Much bigger deal than this crawling nonsense.”

Arthur looked across at him, smiling at the baby on his lap, who was smiling back at him. And Arthur lifted up the cell phone and took a picture before he could think himself out of it. Eames and Lucky, preserved for all time on this cell phone’s memory. Or at least until he had to get rid of the phone. Because that was Arthur’s life, it was entirely transitory, and he had _wanted_ that, he had _chosen_ it, but he supposed he had never seen before what his other option had been, not so starkly illustrated as the picture of Eames and Lucky together.

“Okay,” he said, and cleared his throat as if he wasn’t behaving like a sentimental idiot. “Let’s take photos so your associate can make us the passports.” He walked over to Eames and frowned down at him.

“What’s that frown for?” asked Eames.

“You look awful,” said Arthur. “What kind of passport photo is this going to be?” He reached out and tried to comb Eames’s hair into some semblance of respectability, but it was a lost cause.

“A rakish one,” suggested Eames. “And don’t think you look any better, love. I mean, you’re very, very hot like this, but you’d probably be appalled if you looked in a mirror.”

“I don’t think I even want to know,” sighed Arthur. “We’ll just do the best we can, and as soon as we get home you’re going to watch Lucky while I take a shower for at least an hour.”

“Only if you repay the favor,” said Eames.  

“Agreed,” said Arthur.

Eames cleared his throat and gave Arthur a pointed look.

“And yes, you didn’t even suggest we shower together, I noticed that. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this brave new world where you’ve stopped sexually harassing me.”

“Don’t get used to it, it’s not going to last,” said Eames.

“Smile,” said Arthur, and aimed the cell phone. 

***

Normally, when Arthur left, he left Eames with the gun. Eames didn’t know what had happened to his gun. He must have dropped it during his almost-dying. So they had one gun between the two of them and Arthur left it with Eames under the theory that Eames was less capable of protecting himself otherwise and he had Lucky to protect now as well.

But Arthur was off getting them their passports and Eames had absolutely insisted that he bring the gun with him. Eames was hoping there wouldn’t be trouble but he wasn’t confident, given how the job had ended. He didn’t want to send Arthur there unprotected. He was nervous enough as it was, letting him go alone.

“Not nervous,” he told Lucky. “Totally not nervous. Arthur’s very good at his job and Arthur will come back and Arthur will be fine.” Eames was sitting at the table. The chair was rickety but it was holding. He’d walked himself over there all by himself using the crutches. He was taking every opportunity he could to practice with the crutches.

Lucky was sitting on a kitchen towel knocking her cat toy against the floor and squawking at it. Eames chose to interpret this as how her nerves over Arthur were manifesting themselves.

Afterward, he could never pinpoint what alerted him to the danger. It was the sixth sense of years of experience in those matters. He may have just been almost killed by the malfunctioning of that sixth sense but it kicked into gear suddenly while he sat in the chair and watched Lucky do her version of playing. And for a second he thought, _No, wait, you’re being paranoid because you’re worried about Arthur_. And in the next second his mind clicked over, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. He looked over at Lucky, who was right next to him so that he could pick her up easily if necessary, but the sixth sense creeping over him said it was not a good idea to have Lucky out in the open for anyone to see. They had a baby who had been thrown out, who no one else wanted to acknowledge. She was the most important thing in this room and she had to be protected.

Eames looked past Lucky, to the sorry excuse of a kitchen in the room. It wasn’t a kitchen. It was a bunch of appliances that didn’t work and a single filthy cupboard. That had a door.

The cupboard wasn’t far from them. Maybe two or three steps. For a person with two functioning legs, it would have been nothing. Eames did not have two functioning legs, but Eames didn’t have a choice. Eames scooped Lucky up and tried not to think about before he took the quick two steps over to the cupboard.

“Fuck,” he couldn’t help but say as he almost fell against the cupboard with her, because that had _bloody fucking hurt_.

Lucky was making short, protesting cries and squirming against him and Eames yanked open the cupboard and stuck her in there without preamble and said, “Oh, fuck, I wish you could understand me, _please_ be quiet, Lucky, yeah? _Please_. Shhh.” He put a finger on his lips and then onto hers.

Lucky had fallen silent, whether out of shock or some weird comprehension that a great deal depended on her being silent. She looked at Eames, and Eames tried not to think that her eyes looked terrified.

He winked at her as if it was totally normal to get shoved into a cupboard and told to be quiet, and then he closed the cupboard door on her, hoping she wouldn’t cry with terror at being stuck in the dark, and then he basically fell his way back over to the chair, and he had just sat back down on it when the door was banged down.

So at least his sixth sense hadn’t been firing for no reason.

The man who stalked in was holding a gun and was speaking Spanish. Eames’s head was swimming with pain, enough of it that he was blinking away blackness at the edges of his vision, because he couldn’t afford to lose consciousness, and he _couldn’t believe he’d let Arthur take the gun_.

The man shoved the gun in his face and shouted at him in Spanish and Eames worked at translating and finally got the gist.

“Where is the baby?” was what he was demanding.

Eames managed to pull together enough Spanish to say, “What baby?” hoping desperately that Lucky stayed quiet in the cupboard.

The man took a couple of steps away from him and smiled at him without any amusement. Smiles like that were not good smiles to see from people holding guns on you, thought Eames. “The _little brat_ who is supposed to be dead,” said the man, and Eames got all of that Spanish perfectly. “She’s supposed to be dead. She was never supposed to be born. That whore who was her mother lied to me about that, and now I learn that two _gringos_ think they have the right to decided she should live?”

Eames looked evenly at him. He said, “Do I look like the sort of man who goes around saving babies?”

The man smiled at him again. The man pulled back the safety on the gun.

And Lucky, from inside the cupboard, cried.

The man was distracted by it, looked toward the cupboard. Eames was never going to reach the man before his leg completely gave out, he knew this for a fact, so he did the only thing he could think of to do. He grabbed the crutch leaning on the table and swept it hard against the man, who stumbled backward. Luckily, the gun didn’t go off, but Eames knew this was just a temporary reprieve. He was completely out of options.

He used his good leg to launch himself to the cupboard, to pull Lucky out of it and to pull himself over her, tucking her underneath him, because at least he could make the bastard go through him to get to her. The man was roaring his displeasure in Spanish and Eames curled tighter over Lucky, who was now sobbing heartbrokenly against him.

“Shhh,” he murmured at her, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s okay.” This was the biggest lie but Eames supposed you were allowed to lie to a terrified baby in her final moments on the planet. He kissed her head…and wondered why he wasn’t dead yet.

Which was when he heard Arthur’s voice, speaking calm, even Spanish. “You pull that trigger, you kill him, I kill you, none of us are happy. Whereas. You put the gun down, and you walk away, and you forget all about that baby, and all about us, and we never see each other again, and we’ll all be happy. So what do you say?”

Eames twisted a little bit, opening his eyes. Maybe he was having some kind of pre-death hallucination.

But it looked like Arthur there. He was dressed in different clothing than he’d been wearing when he’d left, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but it was definitely Arthur, and he had a gun pressed against the neck of the man who was holding the gun on Eames.

Arthur pressed the safety back when the man did nothing in response to his words, and that got the man to do something, lowering the gun and lifting up his other hand in surrender.

“Let’s not be hasty,” he said to Arthur.

“Exactly my point,” said Arthur grimly, and took the man’s gun away. “You’ll find your bodyguards a little indisposed outside. I’m sure you understand I had no choice.”

The man glared at Arthur out of the corner of his eye, as if afraid to move his head at all. Eames stayed hunched over Lucky in their awkward and incredibly painful position on the floor, too startled to move. Lucky kept crying.

Arthur said, “I’m going to keep this gun. You’re going to turn around and you’re going to walk out of here. Don’t worry about the baby. We’re not going to try to use her to make any sort of claim on you. As far as you’re concerned, she’s as dead as you wanted her to be.”

The man turned his head a little, so that he could glare at Arthur more fully. Arthur pressed the muzzle of the gun into his neck a little harder and said mildly, “You should probably say, ‘Yes, that sounds good.’”

The man’s eyes flashed hatred but he bit out, “Yes, that sounds good.”

“Good.” Arthur shifted his gun and used it to wave him toward the door.

The man walked toward the door and then through it, glaring the whole way. Arthur walked across the room and looked out the window. Eames stayed where he was, breathing harshly against the pain clouding through his head.

Then Arthur, apparently satisfied, turned back and ran across the room toward them.

Eames struggled to sit up, gasping, “Jesus, fuck,” as Arthur helped him.

Arthur said, “Are you alright? Eames. Talk to me.”

“I’m fine,” Eames managed, even though he really wasn’t, but he wasn’t going to die so he was much better than he just had been. “Just…Jesus fucking Christ.”

Arthur dragged Lucky out of Eames’s arms and Eames watched him cuddle her in close, raining kisses down on her head. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Lucky burrowed into him, clearly clinging for all she was worth. Eames tried to breathe, banging his head back against the cupboard a little bit because he could have clawed out of his skin with how much his leg was killing him.

Arthur disappeared from Eames’s field of vision, came back with a handful of pills that he dropped unceremoniously in Eames’s lap, returned with a bottle of water. “Take a bunch,” Arthur said. “Because we need to leave _now_.”

Eames nodded, tossing back two at once.

Arthur suddenly crouched and put his free hand on the back of Eames’s neck. Lucky had stopped crying, Eames realized. She was now sniffling wetly up against Arthur’s shoulder.

Arthur said, “You saved her.”

“I tried to,” said Eames.

“You saved her,” said Arthur again, and he looked…odd. Intent. Not quite smiling, but definitely not upset.

Eames blinked at him, uncomprehending, wondering why he kept saying that. “Of course I saved her. She’s ours, isn’t she?”

And then Arthur kissed him. It was dry and chaste, just a quick press of his lips to Eames’s, and Eames’s head was swimming with pain so it all felt a little bit like an out-of-body experience, but he was pretty sure Arthur kissed him.

And then leaned his forehead against his and breathed out, “Thank you.”

“Arthur,” said Eames, bewildered.

But then Arthur kissed him again, and Eames wanted to ask if he actually had died, or if maybe he’d passed out, or _something_.

Arthur said, “I’m sorry, I know you’re in pain right now, but it turns out we’re harboring the daughter of the head of the biggest drug cartel in Nicaragua, so we really need to go.” 


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur had bought them clothing, so that they wouldn’t attract stares by wearing their current filthy rags out in public. This made perfect sense, and Eames understood the urgency of the situation, so he didn’t protest when Arthur practically ripped his clothing off of him and started shoving the new clothing on, manhandling him all over the place and mumbling, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” every time he pushed and prodded Eames in a different direction, Eames unable to keep himself from wincing in pain.

“You see,” Eames managed around shallow breaths, “I had this whole scenario in my head for how it would go when you tore my clothes off of me. 

“Falling short, am I?” asked Arthur, and handed Eames his t-shirt.   

“There was less incapacitating pain in my scenario,” said Eames, pulling the t-shirt over his head.

“I know.” Arthur sounded rueful as he turned to Lucky, who he’d left on the floor next to him, clinging to his leg. “I’m sorry, but he’s going to come back, he’s not going to just let us get away with any of this, we have to be gone.”

“Arthur, I know how this goes, remember? You don’t need to explain all of this to me.”

Arthur was trying to pry Lucky away from his leg. Lucky was having none of it. She cried and grabbed for him and Arthur leaned over and said, “I know, I know, I’m so sorry, but I have to get you dressed, I’m so sorry,” as he peeled her away.  

Lucky cried as if her heart was broken at being separated from him, and Arthur stretched her out and tried desperately to wrestle her into clothing while she squirmed around. Eames bit down on his haze of pain and leaned over to grab Lucky’s hand, and she wrapped her fingers tightly around his and looked at him with tear-soaked eyes. 

“We’re right here,” Eames tried to soothe her. “Christ, I’m probably going to be responsible for years of therapy because I shoved her in that cupboard.”

“Yeah, definitely it was the time in the cupboard that traumatized her today,” Arthur remarked, drily, finishing with a tiny pair of jeans and sitting Lucky up to pull a t-shirt emblazoned with boats and ducks over her head. He topped off the outfit with a dark blue baseball cap. “Does she look like a boy?" 

“Is she traveling as a boy?”

“Yes. We need to remember that.” Arthur swung Lucky into his arms and she burrowed against him and took little heaving breaths. He brushed his lips over the baseball cap on her head and murmured, “Okay. You’re okay. You’re fine. I need to put you down for a second to help Eames up.”

Lucky cried and cried upon being put down and Eames’s winces were only partly at the pain of Arthur pulling him up to standing and also partly at how awful it was to listen to Lucky cry like that. He took the crutches Arthur handed him, and Arthur grabbed Lucky and the baby carrier and the small backpack he had been carrying their new clothes in and that he now haphazardly filled with nappies and bottles and formula and Lucky’s cat toy. Lucky, meanwhile, stopped crying, once against burrowing into Arthur.

Arthur said, “We’ve got to get to a main road and get a cab and once we’re in the cab we’ll put her in this contraption.” He indicated the baby carrier as he started walking toward the door.

“Not that I don’t trust you implicitly, darling, but maybe you could fill me in on the rest of your plan?” Eames asked, trying not to grunt with pain and concentrating on following Arthur at what felt like an excruciatingly slow pace.

“We’re reverting to Plan B.”

“Of course you had multiple plans for getting us out of here,” remarked Eames, and he definitely was grunting now.

“Maybe don’t talk,” Arthur suggested, turning and looking at him in concern. “Maybe let me do all the talking.”

Eames glared at him but just grunted in agreement. It was, of course, pouring rain and their new clothing was instantly soaked and Eames had to watch to make sure his crutches didn’t slip in the puddles. Arthur was holding a hand over Lucky’s head in his arms, trying to protect her from the rain, but it didn’t seem to be helping; her baseball cap still looked to be nearly soaked through.

Arthur walked beside Eames, matching his snail-pace. “I figure he’ll think we’re going to make for the airport. He isn’t going to just let it go, of course. He’ll feel humiliated and think he needs to strike back against us.”

“You should have just killed him,” Eames mumbled, with some effort.

“And put us in the middle of a drug war and a power vacuum and ensuing struggle? This was much better. As soon as he can’t find us, he’ll lose interest. After all, we only have his daughter. Nothing too terribly important.” Arthur said it with a dismissive amount of sarcasm.

“Right,” panted Eames. He had never spent so much time out of breath in his life. It was growing old. “So what’s Plan B?”

“We’re going to charter a luxury yacht,” said Arthur.

Eames lifted his eyebrows in surprise. He would have said something but he was now giving up on talking.

“We’re going to have it take us to El Salvador. We’ll get home from there. According to our passports, you and I are Joshua and Alastair Cunningham. You’re Alastair.”

Eames had assumed. He wrinkled his nose to show his opinion of that name.

“We were married two years ago,” Arthur continued. “We live in New York. We’ve just come to Nicaragua to adopt this baby boy, who we are calling Michael. You broke your leg and we’re feeling out-of-sorts at the poor timing, so we thought chartering a yacht would cheer us up.”

They thankfully reached the main street then, and Arthur lifted an arm and conjured a taxi from seemingly out of nowhere, just in time for Eames to collapse into it.

“Okay?” Arthur asked, as he followed him in more gracefully.

“Yeah,” Eames said, “except for the fact that you didn’t give me any say in naming our child.”

Arthur finished giving directions to the cab driver in his flawless, rapid-fire Spanish, then turned to Eames. “When you are allowed to choose children’s names, you choose ridiculous things like Lucky.”

“Admit it, the name’s growing on you,” said Eames.

Arthur gave him that little frowny look he gave Eames when he hated to admit that Eames was right.

Eames said, “You acquired enough money to charter us a yacht? How?”

“Do you really want to know?” asked Arthur.

“Yes, actually, I want to know in great detail.”

Arthur grinned, looking so rakish that Eames thought it wasn’t just the pain he was in making him light-headed. “I’ll save it for foreplay,” Arthur said. 

Eames was abruptly so dizzy with arousal that he actually grabbed the car door handle to ground himself. “Are we…” He cleared his throat so he could actually talk in something other than an embarrassing squeak. “Are we having foreplay?”

“Of course we are, we’re married,” said Arthur, still grinning ear-to-ear at him.

“I…” Eames blinked, still feeling dizzy and terribly off-balance. He couldn’t tell if Arthur was just enthusiastically engaging in the roles they would have to play or if he was actively flirting with him. He said, honestly, “I think I might be in too much pain to banter right now.”

The grin slid off of Arthur’s face. “Right. Yes. Sorry. Of course. Listen, can you take Michael while I bribe us a yacht?”

“Michael,” repeated Eames. Arthur was getting into character. That’s all any of this was. Right. Eames could do that. So he said, honestly, “I’m not sure he wants me.”

“Of course he does.” Arthur was already strapping Lucky in her contraption onto Eames.

“No, I think he wants you,” said Eames, because it was obvious, Lucky had been like a limpet on Arthur.

But, to Eames’s surprise, after Arthur finished hooking up the straps, the baby just cuddled against Eames the same way she had cuddled against Arthur.

“See?” Arthur said. “He loves you, too.”

Eames’s brain did all sorts of funny, swimming sort of things at the idea of Lucky loving him. Because he didn’t know how to process any of it, he settled for murmuring into the baby’s ear, “Hello, poppet,” and kissing her ridiculous baseball cap.

Arthur said, “Okay, the plan is for you to stand and look very adorable with our adorable baby while I wave a lot of cash in the yacht guy’s face.”

“The yacht guy?” echoed Eames.

“What would you call him? The captain? I don’t know a lot about boats.”

“You don’t get seasick, do you?”

“Christ, I hope not.”

“How long is this boat ride going to be?”

“Two and a half hours.”

Eames thought that was doable. He settled into the seat of the taxi and clasped Lucky close against him and said, “So, do we have a fake how-we-met story for this little charade?”

“What are the odds someone’s going to ask how we met?”

“True. If it happens I’ll just make something up.”

“No way,” said Arthur.

Eames adopted innocence. “Why not?”

“The last time you did that, you said we met when I was doing a performance art piece dressed as a drunk sheep musketeer and you were on your way back from dinner with Sophia Loren.”

“Yes, that was a lovely romantic tale, wasn’t it?” said Eames, pleased Arthur had remembered it in so much detail.

“If anyone asks, we met at work.”

Eames made a face. “God, you’re so dull.”

“You’re an artist, you hired me to be your PA,” elaborated Arthur.  

“Oh, and then I seduced you? This is a better story. I must be a very successful artist, to be able to hire a PA.”

“No, you were born into money,” said Arthur, peering out the window at the various docks they were driving past. “You’re basically a wastrel.”

The cab was slowing, pulling to a stop. Eames waited while Arthur said settled them up.  

Then he said, “You’re a horrible human being, I don’t know why I would ever marry you.”

Arthur said lightly, “I’m pretty fucking spectacular in bed,” and then got out of the cab.

Eames blinked after him, feeling dazed again, and said to Lucky, “He might actually literally _kill me_ with all of this.”

Arthur opened the taxi door for Eames and smiled brilliantly down at him and Lucky and then helped them out of the cab, all solicitous husband-ness. It was still raining, and Eames had to limp very carefully with the added weight of Lucky on his chest, so he was quickly unpleasantly drenched again. Arthur had run off ahead, and Eames could see him smiling at the two men he was talking to, gesturing to a good-sized yacht moored off-short a little distance away. Arthur was employing his dimples to maximum effect; Eames had no doubt they would get the boat.

And indeed, when Arthur came jogging over to where Eames had ducked under the overhang of the boathouse roof to try to get out of the rain, he was smiling.

“Well?” Eames asked him.

“They think we’re lunatics to want to charter a boat in the rainy season, but they’re willing to believe anything of eccentric Americans with enough cash.”

“Two and a half hours to El Salvador, right?” said Eames.

Arthur nodded.

So did Eames, gathering his energy for one last bout of walking before he was going to find somewhere to stretch out and not move for the entire voyage. He said, “Let’s go, Joshie.”

Arthur shook his head and said, “No, you don’t call me that, that's just awful.”

Eames braced himself against the wall to finagle an arm free to reach out and haul Arthur in by the t-shirt. He came awkwardly, watching out to leave enough space for Lucky, but he did allow himself to be pulled in and kissed. He even kissed back. It wasn’t a filthy kiss but it wasn’t a chaste kiss either. Eames thought they were moving in the right direction on the spectrum.

He pulled away and said, “Let’s go home.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you think you weren't going to get a new chapter of this tonight because I'd posted a new chapter of KtCR? 
> 
> You underestimate my love for writing this story right now.

The yacht was nice, but Eames’s leg was throbbing and he couldn’t be bothered to do much more than make generic sounds of approval. At least, he hoped they sounded approving. He felt too out of it to even know what sounds he was making.

Finally Arthur said, “You have to excuse my husband. The baby hasn’t been sleeping through the night yet and his painkillers make him sleepy on top of that.” 

“Of course, of course,” said the steward who had been showing them around. “Perhaps you want to see the sleeping quarters.” 

The sleeping quarters consisted of a not-nearly-big-enough bed in a little alcove that flowed right into a bathroom with a not-nearly-big-enough shower that flowed right into a not-nearly-big-enough sitting area. Eames didn’t even bother to translate whatever Arthur was saying to get the steward to finally leave them the fuck alone. He leaned heavily against the wall and closed his eyes and when he finally heard the door close he said, “I’m not sure I like boats. Everything is _tiny_.” 

“It’s a yacht, Eames, not a rowboat.” 

Eames made a sound of general grumbling. He wasn’t in a good mood, but he thought he was allowed, because his leg was _fucking killing_ him. 

“The baby’s asleep,” Arthur said, right next to him, and Eames opened his eyes. Arthur was leaned down so he look into Lucky’s face. 

“You should give her the bed,” Eames suggested. 

Arthur hesitated, glancing up at him. “I was going to give you the bed.” 

“And what are you going to do with her?” 

“Him,” Arthur reminded Eames. “And I’ll put him out here. Before you go to sleep…”

Eames lifted his eyebrows. 

“Do you want to take a shower?” suggested Arthur. 

The idea curled through Eames like smoke. Once upon a time, the best words he could have imagined hearing out of Arthur would have been _Do you want to have sex?_ He’d reassessed. 

“Fuck, yes,” he said fervently. 

***

“You need to make sure not to get it wet,” Arthur said, and produced plastic from his backpack. 

“You got me plastic for my leg so I can shower?” Eames said. 

Arthur just looked at him, because, well, wasn’t that obvious? 

“What the fuck, Arthur, how do you think of _everything_?” 

“It’s my job,” Arthur said, simply. “I’ve got you another change of clothes, too.” Arthur dropped them in the bathroom for him. 

Eames just shook his head at him. 

“I figured we’d need them and I was right,” said Arthur, hoping he didn’t sound defensive. “You need to wrap your leg in plastic and also you’re going to have to leave it sticking outside of the shower.” 

“Fine, fine. If I promise I can keep myself standing upright, can I be spared the humiliation of taking a shower with you that doesn’t involve sex?” 

“If you fall over and hit your head—”

“Just let me drown if I do that,” Eames said, “because I will be too embarrassed to continue living.” 

“Shut up,” Arthur said. “Don’t be too proud to call me for help if you need it.” 

“I am very seldom proud,” Eames remarked. 

“True, not one of the adjectives I generally apply to you.” 

“And what would those adjectives be?” Eames asked, with a leer and a grin, which was his usual way of speaking to Arthur, and usually Arthur rolled his eyes and just ignored him and only recently was Arthur finding himself unable to do this. He wasn’t sure why he kept flirting back. He wasn’t sure what was going on in his head. 

He said, “Insufferable. Impossible. British.” 

“Not bad,” Eames said and winked at him before disappearing into the bathroom. 

Arthur took a deep breath and walked into the sitting area, where he’d set up Lucky on the floor. She was sleeping deeply, her breaths coming slowly and evenly, and he laid on the floor next to her and reached out his little finger and brushed it against her tiny fist and thought of walking in to Lucky sobbing and a gun pointed at Eames and he took a deep, shuddering breath and leaned forward and very gently kissed her cheek. 

“You’re okay,” he whispered to her. “And I know we’re running you away from your home, but it’s going to be okay now, I promise, it’s the only way to get your safe.” 

He heard the shower turn off and rolled away from Lucky, toward the bathroom, listening. It didn’t sound as if Eames fell over, and indeed the door opened and he emerged in a puff of steam, fully upright. He wasn’t wearing the clothes Arthur had provided for him. He was wearing nothing but a towel hooked around his waist. 

It was annoying. 

Eames said, “I have had more relaxing showers.” 

Arthur sat up and watched him hobble on his crutches toward the bedroom area, where he heard him collapse onto the bed. 

So Arthur stood and walked over and hovered in the doorway. Eames was face-down on the bed, the towel slung low on his hips and tattoos curling over his back. _Annoying._

Arthur managed to say, “But at least you’re a little cleaner?” 

Eames waved his hand around. “Water was applied to skin and it wasn’t rain and it was actually _hot_. So I can’t complain.” 

“Good. He, um, seems like he’s sleeping pretty well. Do you mind if I jump in and out of the shower quickly?” 

“I can handle him if he cries, we’ll be fine,” Eames said, and yawned. 

Probably Eames was going to fall asleep, Arthur thought, but he could just take the world’s fastest shower. 

He stood under a blast of hot water and stuck his head underneath it and just breathed for a second. It felt like fucking _heaven_. Arthur thought he could _live_ in this shower. 

Then the hot water turned almost immediately lukewarm and Arthur actually laughed out loud. _Of course_ the boat had barely any hot water and Eames had used all of it. 

Arthur turned off the shower and pulled on his fresh change of clothing and walked out of the bathroom, feeling much better than he had in a while. Lucky was still sleeping soundly. Arthur glanced toward Eames, who looked as if he was sleeping soundly, too. 

Arthur stood, suffering from fits of indecision. He shouldn’t get into the bed with Eames. He really, really, really shouldn’t. There was no reason to. He could go lay down next to Lucky and…that would definitely be the wise course of action. It would definitely be the Logical Arthur Course of Action. 

What the fuck he was talking about? It would be the Logical Arthur Course of Action to go lay down next to the kingpin baby he’d kidnaped? What about anything he had been doing lately was Logical or _Arthur_? He felt a little like he’d lost his mind. 

And if he was going to lose his mind, he might as well enjoy it, he thought. He honestly could no longer remember why he’d never allowed himself to have Eames before. 

So he crawled onto the bed next to Eames. 

Eames didn’t stir. Eames was snoring a little, his face half-smushed into his pillow. It wasn’t terribly attractive, not if you were a person who wasn’t in love with Eames. Arthur, of course, was a person who was hopelessly in love with Eames, so he thought Eames looked like _perfection_. He stared at him, alive when Arthur had thought, for a little while, that that wasn’t going to be the case. Eames, who had raised his eyebrows and blinked a few times when Arthur had stumbled in with a _baby_ but had rolled with it because Arthur had asked him to, and then Eames had cuddled her and played with her and tried to sacrifice his life for hers. 

Arthur looked at Eames sleeping next to him and _literally couldn’t breathe_. He suddenly remembered why he’d never allowed himself to have Eames before: because Eames was fucking _terrifying_. 

In the other room, Lucky began to cry, little bursts of noise to remind them she was there. 

Eames’s eyes flickered open. Arthur, frozen into place, couldn’t even turn his head to pretend he hadn’t been staring at him like an idiot. 

But Eames just smiled at him as if he had expected to find Arthur in bed next to him. “Hi,” he said. 

“Hi,” Arthur managed in return. He was sure it sounded like an undignified croak. 

Eames’s eyes closed again and he murmured, “Our baby is crying.” 

“Yeah,” said Arthur. She was getting more energetic about it, too, sounding offended. 

“Bring her in here,” said Eames into his pillow. “She can play with her cat toy in between us and we can both get some sleep.” 

“What if we roll over onto her?” asked Arthur. 

“We won’t. Don’t fight with me, I can’t fight back, I’m sleeping.” 

Arthur paused. The truth was it was nice in this bed. It was tempting to stay in it. He didn’t really want to get up and be responsible and stay alone with Lucky in the other room. Arthur was very, very, very tired of being responsible. Eames was terrifying but Eames was Eames and Arthur _wanted_ him and Arthur was _exhausted_. 

Arthur pulled himself out of bed, just as Lucky stopped crying. Alarm made him rush into the other room, in time to see her tentatively crawling herself forward. She looked up at him and beamed, clearly pleased with herself. 

“Impressive,” Arthur told her, smiling, and picked her up and kissed her head. She babbled at him in reply. He carried her back to the bedroom and settled her on the bed next to Eames, putting her cat toy next to her and stretching out on the other side of her. 

Lucky poked Eames in the nose. 

Eames mumbled, without opening his eyes, “Hello, poppet.” 

“She was crawling,” Arthur said, feeling a little giddy with pride over that. 

“Of course she was,” said Eames. “Crawling to you. I’d like to see anyone try to keep that baby from getting to you. She’ll never stand for it.” 

Lucky looked at Arthur and smiled widely and stuck her cat toy in her mouth. 

Arthur kissed her because he couldn’t help it and then tucked her in against the curve of his body, and she leaned against him, gnawing on her cat toy, and Arthur closed his eyes and listened to Eames breathing. The boat rolled underneath them and Arthur thought, _It’s terrifying but it’s perfect. And we’re almost home._


	7. Chapter 7

Arthur woke with a start to a knock on their door. 

Eames was still sprawled next to him. Lucky was on his chest, and Eames was doing some complicated juggling routine with his poker chip and her cat toy, and Lucky was giggling like he was the most hilarious thing she’d ever seen. 

Eames glanced at him in the middle of making his poker chip “disappear” into Lucky’s ear and said, “We’ve got company.” 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Arthur, fighting off his grogginess as he slid out of the bed. 

But he stopped to dig the gun out of the backpack on his way to the door, tucking it into the back of the waistband of his jeans. And then he pulled his T-shirt off, so that he would look as if he had a good excuse for refusing to grant whoever was at their door admittance. 

He positioned himself so as to give the impression that he wasn’t fully dressed, leaning just his bare chest over the sliver of door that he opened, smiling sunnily at the steward. 

“We are roughly twenty minutes away, sir,” said the steward. 

“Excellent,” said Arthur, still smiling. “Thank you. We’ll be ready.” He gave a cheerful little wave, then closed the door. 

Then he thought how he needed to watch where he left the gun, if Lucky was crawling and mobile. 

Then he went back to bed. Arthur couldn’t remember the last time in his life he’d woken up and then _gone back to bed_. There was something decadent and luxurious about crawling back in next to Eames and Lucky. He was going to give himself just five more minutes. 

Eames quirked an amused smile at him. “What happened to your shirt?” 

“Took it off,” Arthur yawned. 

“Trying to give the impression of debauchery?” 

“Trying to,” said Arthur, and smiled at Lucky because she was smiling at him from her perch on Eames’s chest. 

“You’re utterly devastating when you’re like this,” said Eames, but he didn’t say it with the edge of flirtation that Arthur would have expected.

Arthur looked at him. Eames was regarding with a quizzical expression on his face, like Arthur was doing something mysterious he couldn’t understand. 

“Like what?” Arthur asked, because he wanted to know. 

Eames said, slowly, “You tell me,” which was just _nonsensical_. 

Lucky bashed her cat toy into Eames’s face and Eames said, “Ow,” and the moment was ruined. 

“What did they want at the door?” Eames asked, going back to his juggling routine for Lucky’s benefit. 

“Twenty minutes until we get to land. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.” 

“You needed it desperately. Lucky and I kept ourselves occupied, didn’t we, poppet?” 

Lucky stuck her fingers in her mouth and tried to talk around them. 

Arthur laid on his stomach and looked at her and thought of how odd it was that he had slept through Eames and Lucky playing only a few inches from him. Usually Arthur was a light sleeper. 

Or maybe his body had just recognized that Eames-and-Lucky noises weren’t threatening. 

Lucky squirmed her way off of Eames and drew one drool-dripping finger down Arthur’s cheek. 

“Lovely,” said Arthur. 

“That’s her highest gesture of affection. Well. Second highest. Right behind directly spitting in your face.” 

“I’m honored,” said Arthur, and kissed her cheek until she laughed and wriggled in his arms. “But now we have to go back to real life. Let’s get you changed.” He rolled out of the bed with her and headed into the bathroom to dig into the backpack. 

And then something occurred to him.

“Eames?” he called. 

Eames grunted in reply. 

“Do you think I should give her a bath?” 

Eames appeared in the bathroom doorway, leaning on his crutches. “Do you know how to give a baby a bath?” 

“Well, no, but I assume it’s similar to giving an adult a bath.” 

“Do you give baths to a lot of adults?” 

“You know what I mean. It’s similar to an adult _taking_ a bath.”

“Do you take a lot of baths?” Eames sounded curious now. 

“We’re off-topic,” Arthur said firmly, because he wasn’t going to start talking about taking baths with Eames. Talking with Eames about taking baths. Not taking baths with Eames. 

Damn it. 

“Too late, I can’t back on topic, I want to hear about you and bubbles. Lots and lots of bubbles.” 

“Sit down here,” Arthur commanded, closing the toilet lid. 

Eames squeezed past him to obey. “No. I’ve changed my mind. Not lots and lots of bubbles. No bubbles at all. Just you and water.” 

“Eames, hold the baby and stop thinking about me and water.” 

“Well, now that’s the only thing I can think of. Tell me something else not to think about.” 

Arthur pulled her shirt up over her head and steadfastly did not look at Eames’s towel. “When do you think you’re getting dressed?” he asked, trying to sound casual about it. 

“Sometime in the next twenty minutes,” said Eames. “Unless you’re suggesting the possibility of giving me a bath?” 

Arthur tested the temperature of the water he was soaking the facecloth in. “I am not in any way suggesting that possibility.” Arthur wrung the facecloth out. 

“How boring is Arthur, Lucky? What’s that? Very boring? I think so, too. Very, very boring.” 

“I gave you lots of baths,” said Arthur, because he was annoyed at being called boring. He didn’t know why he was annoyed; Eames called him boring all the time, and he normally didn’t care. “You didn’t enjoy them.” He scrubbed cautiously at Lucky’s arm, because she felt fragile enough to him that one wrong move on his part could snap her. How could such a tiny thing be _functioning_? It was beyond him. It was _miraculous_. And her _father_ had tracked her down just to put a bullet in that tiny perfect head. Arthur thoroughly rubbed the dirt off of each of Lucky’s miraculous fingers and thought he should have killed him and cursed his own practicality in that moment. 

“When did you give me baths?” asked Eames, confused. 

“Hmm?” Arthur had to stop and rinse the facecloth because of how filthy it was. 

“I don’t remember you giving me any baths. I think I’d remember that.” 

“You were unconscious because you’d almost died. I was tasked with keeping your wound clean you wouldn’t die of an infection.” Arthur said it briskly, as if that time hadn’t been just endless, delirious terror in his brain, scrubbing up and over Lucky’s chest, behind her neck. 

“Right,” Eames said after a moment. “Thank you—”

Arthur shook his head and swiped the facecloth gently over Lucky’s mainly-bald head. “I didn’t say it to make you thank me again. I didn’t say it to…” He had no idea why he’d said it. He was an idiot. 

Lucky’s one wisp of hair stood up wetly, and he smoothed it back down and said, “There you go. Like a brand new baby,” and then he tickled at her stomach until she gave him that smile she had and went all wriggly with delight. Lucky wriggly with delight was his new favorite thing. 

He looked up to find Eames staring at him. 

“What?” he asked defensively, feeling like an idiot suddenly. What was he _doing_?

Eames’s hand closed on the back of his neck and pulled him in quickly, before Arthur could jerk out of it, and when Eames kissed him Arthur thought, _Stop this. There’s no reason for this. There’s no one watching and there’s nothing life-threatening happening and what the fuck are you doing?_ Because what Arthur really did, regardless of what his brain said to do, was he kissed Eames back. 

And not even some quick little playful thing he could have laughed off later. He _kissed_ him, with a lot of tongue, and it was wet and it was messy and it was _filthy_ and there was no way they should have been kissing like that in front of the baby—

No, there was no way they should have been kissing like that, but Eames made a sound like a growl and he dragged his fingers down Arthur’s spine and Arthur made a sound back, a desperate approving sort of sound, like something in him breaking and he was never going to be able to pretend again after this, he just _wasn’t_. 

The effort it took him to push away from Eames sent him practically reeling against the opposite wall. But the bathroom was tiny, so that didn’t look as dramatic as it could have. 

Arthur glanced at Lucky, who was paying them absolutely no attention. She was busy sticking the facecloth Arthur had been using into her mouth. 

Arthur winced and grabbed it from her and she cried in protest. “You can’t eat that,” he told her, and pulled her out of Eames’s arms. “It’s disgusting.” 

“Arthur,” said Eames. 

“I need to get her dressed,” Arthur said, trying to clear the space in his brain that he needed, because they were running from a drug lord, Arthur had to keep his head about him, this wasn’t a fucking romantic getaway. “You need to get dressed.” 

“Arthur—”

“Eames, listen to me.” Arthur spoke very calmly and very evenly and forced himself to look at Eames as he did it. “I have to get us off this boat, and then I have to get us to San Salvador, and then I have to get us on a plane, and I have to keep all of us alive while I do it. So I…” Arthur gestured helplessly. How to say _I am really bad at all of this, obviously, look how long it took me to get to just this point, can you not push me into the nervous breakdown of YOU until this baby I’ve stolen is safe?_

And Eames said, “Arthur, you don’t have to do any of that. _We_ do.” 

Arthur looked at him and thought, _This is why you’re going to give me a nervous breakdown. Because you’re too perfect._

But he nodded and said, “Get dressed.” And then he grabbed the backpack and fled to the living area. 

Where he immediately checked his die. 

Real life. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how much of an idiot am I?” Arthur asked Lucky, as he pulled a shirt over her head. 

Lucky tried to poke him in the eye. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how likely is he to break my heart?” Arthur asked, wrestling her pants on her. 

Lucky stuck out her tongue. 

“You’re leaving a lot open to interpretation,” said Arthur. 

Lucky smiled at him and pulled his hair.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to knackorcraft, who's feeding me research here.

Eames stood under an awning, trying to hide from the rain. It was him, and Lucky in the baby backpack on his chest, and a stray dog. A small part of Eames wondered if Arthur was going to insist on taking the stray dog with them, too. Arthur seemed to have a thing for picking up strays. 

Arthur had ventured off to the corner that apparently functioned as a bus depot in the town where they found themselves. He was hunched a bit against the rain, having a conversation with the people standing on the corner. 

“He doesn’t look very pleased, does he?” Eames remarked to Lucky, because even at their distance, he could tell Arthur was frowning. “It’s the beard he’s sporting right now, I think. It obscures the dimples. Usually he can flash the dimples and everyone falls to pieces in front of him. The fucking dimples are an unfair advantage, Lucky. The beard is an equalizer.” 

Arthur came running back to them, slipping under the awning and making a face. “Arizona,” he told Lucky. “Or the Sahara Desert. I’m telling you. I’m going somewhere where it is never, ever, ever going to fucking rain.” 

“The weather _is_ unpleasant but let’s save this conversation for when we’re safely on our way outside of this town, hmm?” suggested Eames, looking over at where a burly security guard with a machine gun was glaring at him as if he was doing something suspicious that might lead to him getting shot. 

“We missed the last bus,” said Arthur. 

“Well, that doesn’t seem like a good thing, does it?” said Eames mildly. “We could bribe someone to take us.” 

Arthur shook his head. “I don’t want to. I don’t trust anyone who knows I could afford to bribe them not to sell us out and leave us dead in a ditch somewhere for the rest of the money I’m carrying. And I especially don’t want to travel with her at night. There’s too many variables I can’t control about this.” 

And Arthur was nothing if not a control freak. As evidenced by the fact that he was apparently completely capable of treating Eames to one of the most mind-blowing kisses of his life and then turning around and saying, _No, not quite yet, that doesn’t fit into my detailed plan for the next three decades of my life._

It was possible Eames was in a bad, bitter, sexually frustrated mood. He was okay with taking that mood out on Arthur, if he had to. 

He said, “So tell me your plan, then, because I know you have one.” 

Arthur gave him a funny look, and he supposed he had sounded a little more sarcastic about that than he usually did. Usually he didn’t mind at all that Arthur was such an inveterate planner. Usually he found it appealing. “We’re staying here for the night,” said Arthur, with an implied _obviously_ , which Eames supposed made sense, because it wasn’t like they had other options. 

“Okay,” Eames agreed, and took his eyes off the machine gun across the street to look at Arthur. “Do you have an idea about where? Because I don’t like the fact that everyone here seems to have a gun but me.” 

“I’d buy you one on the black market but you might as well wait now,” said Arthur. 

“I’m not asking for a gift, petal, I promise, I just want to get off this bloody street.” Eames thought it was possible he was whining. Fuck, he _was_ in a bad mood. 

Arthur gave him another look and said, “Of course I have an idea. Why don’t I take her?” 

“I’ve got her,” Eames said irritably. 

“I see that, but I think you’re tired.” _Cranky_ was what Arthur meant. 

Eames wanted to say, _I’m incredibly cranky but not because I’m tired but because you’re right there in front of me and I can’t touch you because I can’t make up my mind whether you want me to or not and probably that’s because you can’t make up your mind about that._

Eames didn’t say anything. He let Arthur pull Lucky into his arms. Arthur kissed her chubby cheek and said, “I’m sorry about the rain, Lucky, nothing I can do about it.” 

Lucky babbled at him and tucked her head against the curve of Arthur’s neck, because Lucky knew he didn’t mind that. If Eames tucked his head against the curve of Arthur’s neck, he had no idea what Arthur would do. Since it was Lucky, Arthur pressed her closer and looked both ways before crossing the road, apparently sure that Eames would follow. 

Eames did follow, because what the hell else was he going to do? He just followed Arthur: Arthur’s plan, Arthur’s lead, Arthur, Arthur, _Arthur_. 

Arthur walked confidently. Eames walked less confidently because he hated his crutches. But they didn’t have to walk very far before Arthur halted in front of a bright blue wall topped with a ton of barbed wire. In the middle of it was a heavy-duty gate that looked like it would withstand a bomb. 

Arthur rang the intercom and spoke in halting, poorly accented Spanish, not at all his usual perfect fluency. But it painted them as inept American tourists who had somehow got themselves stranded in a port city in El Salvador in rainy season. The gate buzzed its way open. 

The hotel wasn’t much. A central house painted bright blue that had seen some better days, and two wings stretching out from it on either side that Eames supposed held the guest rooms. The lobby had a cockroach that Eames sidestepped but that was just the tropics for you. Arthur was telling a story to the sympathetic woman at the front desk. It was a horrible tragic story of lost luggage, and Eames’s broken leg, and their first few days of fatherhood being a comedy of errors, and they just wanted someplace to stay until they could catch the bus to San Salvador in the morning. 

The woman nodded and said they were poor things and fussed over Lucky, who played her part and flashed her smile and pretended to be shy by hiding her face against Arthur. The woman cooed and clucked and gave Arthur a room key, and Arthur said, Gracias, gracias over and over with the terrible accent he’d adopted. 

Then he walked over to Eames and said, “Okay, this way.” 

He walked them through the lobby to the open-air corridor that led to the guest rooms, and Eames realized abruptly that they were right on the beach. 

“It’s nice,” he said. 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” said Arthur. “Do I normally make you stay in terrible places?” 

Eames considered. “Yes, actually.” 

“Well,” allowed Arthur, “that’s for work, it’s different, we’re on a budget. Here we are.” Arthur stuck the key into the door and shoved it open. 

The room was nice. There was a little living/dining area with a small kitchenette and a decent-sized bedroom with a large bed. Eames went through pulling all the curtains closed out of habit, and then he went back to the living area, where Arthur was prepping a bottle. 

“I think it’s time to feed her,” Arthur said. “Have you noticed she doesn’t really ever cry to eat? Like she’s not on a schedule.” 

“She’s not on a schedule,” Eames pointed out, because they had been all over the place as far as _schedule_ went lately. 

“Right, but I don’t think she was ever on a schedule.” Arthur gave Lucky the bottle. She sucked at it greedily. “See? She eats when she gets the chance, but she never cries about it if we’re late with a meal.” 

“She’s an improviser,” Eames said. “Good baby for us. Eat when you can, try not to complain about it otherwise.” 

“Yeah,” said Arthur reflectively, looking down at Lucky in his arms as she ate. “I think her mother must have been something. She had to know she was living on borrowed time. But she took as much as of it as she could, and then she rolled the dice and put her baby in a pile of garbage, hoping.” 

“Shot in the dark,” Eames agreed, “and it paid off.” 

“Yeah,” said Arthur again, and brushed his hand over Lucky’s head. 

“Lucky,” Eames said. 

Arthur smiled a little bit, then sat on one of the couches in the living area and looked raptly down at Lucky while she ate. 

Eames felt awkward, like he was intruding, so he said, “I think I might take another shower. In a shower that actually has room for me to spread my arms out and not have to be all hunched up to fit into it.” 

Arthur made a noncommittal noise. 

“Okay,” Eames said, because he guessed there was nothing else to discuss. Arthur was clearly preoccupied with other things. 

But he was a little bit relieved when Arthur called after him, typical mother-hen, “Don’t get your wound wet!” 

***

Lucky ate and then Lucky fell asleep. Arthur carried her into the bedroom and laid her in the middle of the bed and then he set up a million obstructions to stop her from rolling out of it or even being able to crawl out of it. Then he stood stupidly in the bedroom and listened to the shower behind the bathroom door and considered the option of just going in there. There was no way Eames wouldn’t think that was the world’s best idea. It was Arthur who didn’t think it was the world’s best idea. 

Arthur leaned his forehead against the bathroom door and considered. 

Then he took a deep breath and walked out to the kitchen area and picked up the phone and called the front desk and said, “Is it possible to get wine?” 

Which was why he was pouring out glasses of red when he heard the shower finally shut off. He took a sip and made a face, because it was cheap red wine and it made him think of being an idiot college student and thinking that cheap red wine was ever a good idea. But he didn’t have any fucking options here. He’d chosen a poor time to change his mind about Eames. Sometimes he and Eames were in Paris, and he could have gone out and gotten some extravagant bottle of champagne, and instead he was doing it this way. 

The next time someone praised Arthur’s perfect planning abilities, he was going to point out that he’d decided to seduce Eames in a port town in El Salvador in the rainy season with a baby in the other room while Eames was still in pain from a bullet wound to his leg that had almost killed him. 

Eames said as he came into the living area, “Before you get all upset about it: yes, I used up all the hot water, so you should wait before—what’s this?”

“We’re celebrating,” said Arthur, and picked up both glasses and nodded toward one of the chairs so Eames got the message. “It isn’t the world’s best wine, but we’re going to make do.” 

Eames sat and accepted the wine Arthur carried over to him. And he said, “You’re a secret hedonist, aren’t you?” 

Arthur felt his eyebrows flicker upward in surprise. “Secret?” he echoed, because he thought it had been kind of obvious that he liked nice things. “Eames, do you have any idea how much money I spend on my wardrobe?” he asked quizzically, because surely the designer suits gave him away. 

“True.” Eames considered. “I guess I just got this idea in my head that you’re so practical. Every time I want to do something ridiculous, you’re the one saying we should be practical.” 

“I’m very practical,” said Arthur, sitting opposite him. “And it’s part of my practicality that I appreciate nice things.” 

“How much money do you have on you right now, and where did you get it?” 

“Relax, it’s mine, I accessed one of my accounts.” 

“You’re very rich, aren’t you?” 

“You should be very rich, too.” 

“I waste it on booze and women.” 

“You waste it on gambling and men.” 

“And a little bit of booze and women, too. Can we get back to how rich you are? And you once made me eat ramen noodles for two straight weeks because you said we didn’t have money in the budget for anything else.” 

“That’s not fair, you had a choice between that and the pureed squash I’d procured.” 

“That was baby food, Arthur.” 

Arthur shrugged and lifted his glass to his lips. 

“Wait,” Eames said, and Arthur paused. “We need to toast. What are we celebrating?” 

“Not being killed by a drug kingpin,” said Arthur. 

“To your perfect sense of timing, darling,” said Eames, and clinked his glass against Arthur’s before taking a sip. “The wine is fine,” he said. “You’re a snob, you know.” 

Arthur said, “I’m sorry.” That was not at all how he had intended to start this off. He was _terrible_ at planning Eames. 

Eames tipped his head at him, evidently as confused as Arthur was by how inexplicably Arthur behaved around him. “I think it’s adorable that you’re such a snob, but I sense that you’re apologizing for something else.” 

“Never mind,” said Arthur, trying to get back on track. 

“No.” Eames’s eyes were narrow. “Why are you apologizing?” 

Well, he’d started it, he supposed he’d better finish it. “For almost getting you killed today.” 

“You didn’t almost get me killed today.” 

“Yes, I did. I’m the one who brought Lucky home and I left you with her and I took the gun—”

“I insisted you take the gun, remember? And, Arthur, love, really, did you think I ever thought poorly of you for bringing her home? Did you think I resented her for even one second when I was looking down the barrel of that gun? Is that really what you think of me?” Eames looked genuinely hurt by that. 

“No,” said Arthur honestly. “I don’t. But…you saved her life. And you didn’t have to. And I…” Arthur didn’t know what he was saying. Everything in his head was such a complete jumble of emotion at the moment. 

“Darling, I did a really terrible job of saving her life. You were the one who saved her life.” 

“But you hid her, and if you hadn’t hid her, he would have seen her immediately and he would have shot her. And you did all that because I went crazy and brought us a baby to take care of and you never blinked.” 

“Arthur,” said Eames. “The only reason I was alive to almost get killed today is because you saved my life in the first place. So stop apologizing to me about your desire to take care of people. It’s one of your excellent qualities.” 

And Arthur heard himself say, “I’m adopted.” Which was the _fucking stupidest thing to say_. He was supposed to be trying to seduce Eames here and instead he was babbling about _nonsense_. 

Eames blinked but didn’t say anything. 

And Arthur, for some insane reason, _kept talking_. “They found me abandoned in a hospital. I was older. No one knows how old, exactly. It’s one of the quirks about me: I actually don’t really know my age. They think I was around eighteen months. I was just wandering the halls. They tried to find my parents for the longest time, but they never could and eventually I was adopted. I don’t remember anything about it, I was too young, and I have very lovely adoptive parents who have no idea what to make of me but the thing is, I have never stopped wondering what happened. How did I end up there? I was old enough to smile, Eames. Smile the way Lucky smiles. I was old enough to hug back. There was someone I smiled at, someone I loved, and that someone just…left me. And I will never know why. Her mother saved her life. Her mother was tremendously brave and loved her more than anything else on the planet and saved her life. And I can tell her that. I can make that part of her story. If I’d taken her to a hospital and just left her, she’d never know that. She’d just…wonder and wonder, why no one loved her. When really she was loved beyond reason. I can stop her from wondering about that. So I will. So I have to. I don’t know what the fuck I am saying right now.” 

“Darling,” said Eames, sounding like he didn’t know what to make of Arthur’s idiocy either. 

“Fuck,” said Arthur, and put his wine down. “Erase all of that.” 

“Erase all of what?” asked Eames blankly. 

“Erase everything I’ve said since you got out of the shower.” 

Eames looked confused and uncertain. “Are you alright?” he asked. 

Arthur actually laughed. “I am a fucking disaster and you know it.” 

“I don’t think you are. I’ve never thought that,” said Eames, sounding a little cross. 

Arthur looked across at him. Then he suddenly dropped to his knees in front of him and just stuck his face into Eames’s chest. It was _ridiculous_. But Eames smelled fresh from the shower and was still slightly damp and he nuzzled against the solid warmth of him and thought, _Please don’t push me away, please just pull me in_. 

Eames pulled him in. Eames dragged his hands through Arthur’s hair and Arthur felt the lips he pressed into the top of his head. And then Eames said gently, “Arthur, I have no idea what’s going on with you, but—”

“I thought you were going to die,” Arthur cut him off. “There was so much blood, Eames, I can’t even explain to you. There was _so much blood_ , and I had a tourniquet tied with an Hermes tie and a back-alley doctor and I paid him off with money that was still _covered in your blood_ and he told me you were going to die. He said, ‘I did the best I could, but he’ll probably never wake up and even if he does he’ll probably get an infection,’ and I said he didn’t know you and you would be fine because you’re so fucking stubborn. And you were, I knew you would be, and then I walked in today and there was another gun pointed at you and I had this crazy thought that somehow I’d saved your life and I wasn’t supposed to and you were just going to die anyway, after everything I did, and maybe this is going to keep happening until I tell you, until I just _tell_ you.” 

Arthur took a deep shuddery breath and pressed his fingers around Eames’s hips and wondered why he had never before had the idea to say all this while his head was buried in Eames’s chest, it made it all _much_ easier not to have to look at him while he was saying such stupid things. “There is something about you that makes me want to keep waking up. There is something about you that makes me think that I could never dream up something as wondrous as you in real life. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who always thinks to tell me that things will be okay. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who includes me in a ‘we’ all the time. So, I don’t know, I’m having some kind of nervous breakdown here or something but I thought I should tell you that I really don’t want you to die. I really kind of need you to stay alive for me. Okay?” Arthur held his breath and thought, _Please just say yes. Don’t point out I’m behaving like an idiot. Just say yes, Arthur, I’ll stay alive for you, now what are we having for dinner?_

Eames rested his lips on Arthur’s head, spoke into his hair. He said, “Arthur, love, are we saying things to each other that we should have said ages ago? Because I should have told you ages ago that of course we’re a ‘we.’ We were a ‘we’ long ago. I just thought you wouldn’t abide being a ‘we.’ You didn’t seem like the type. So I didn’t tell you that I stalked you from afar, just to make sure you were alright. I’ll tell you now: I always tell you things are going to be okay because I have always known that if ever all of your magnificent planning fails you, you’ll still have me to help. You don’t have to do everything alone. You never have. That was everyone else, who took you for granted and just said, ‘Oh, Arthur will do it.’ With me? It was never a ‘you.’ It was always a ‘we.’” 

Arthur breathed. Arthur listened to Eames’s heart beating and _breathed_. 

Eames said, “I’m glad I was the one who was shot. I would have been fucking useless if you’d been the one bleeding out on me.” 

“You would have had to use my own tie for the tourniquet,” Arthur said. 

Eames chuckled. “I feel I should warn you, petal: you’re a view I’m going to get used to here.” 

“That’s fine,” said Arthur. “That’s more than fine.” 

“Just so we’re clear,” said Eames, and kissed his head again.

Arthur cleared his throat and straightened to sit back. “Now that that’s out of the way,” he said briskly. 

“Oh,” said Eames, looking off-balance. “Okay. Are we…moving on now?” 

“Honestly my plan for this evening was just that I was going to blow you so I thought I’d get us back on track,” said Arthur, and reached for Eames’s jeans. 

Eames made a sound like all the air had been pushed out of him. Arthur liked that sound. Arthur liked the way Eames’s eyes were almost all pupil watching him. Arthur liked the way Eames flexed and arched under him. Arthur liked the way Eames tasted. Arthur liked the way Eames gasped and closed his hands in Arthur’s hair. Arthur liked the way Eames said his name at first, on a sigh of pleasure, and Arthur liked better the way Eames said his name later, when Arthur had drawn it out and Eames was desperate and bit out, “Arthur, fucking—” and then didn’t get out the rest because Arthur let him fall over the edge then. 

Eames’s hands clenched convulsively in his hair and then dragged him up and kissed him hard, almost viciously, more teeth than tongue, and then he pulled away and said harshly, panting for breath, “Fuck you.” 

Arthur lifted an eyebrows. “Is this an instruction or an invitation or…?” 

“No, it’s a condemnation, because only you would wait until you were sure I was at a sexual disadvantage.” 

“A sexual disadvantage,” repeated Arthur. 

“Exactly.” 

“Yes, that’s me. I definitely planned to save the consummation of our relationship for some time when you would be incapacitated. I am, after all, a meticulous planner.” 

“And it’s really fucking hot and you know it,” said Eames, and then kind of pushed Arthur over to the floor and kind of fell down on top of him. 

“Oof,” said Arthur, absorbing the weight of him inelegantly. 

“Ow, my leg,” said Eames into Arthur’s neck. 

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Arthur told him. 

“Shut up,” Eames told him, and kissed him. “Seriously, stop smiling, I can’t kiss you properly when you’re smiling.” 

“I’m not smiling,” Arthur denied, but he realized abruptly that he was and he couldn’t stop. 

“It’s not funny, you know. I’m in a lot of pain, and you’re laughing at me.” Eames kissed him again. 

It was better, Arthur thought. It was, impossibly, _better_ than he’d ever imagined, now that it was all out of him, now that all of it was in Eames’s head, where it should be, whenever Eames thought of him. 

Arthur tried to stop smiling, he really did, but he failed miserably. “I just gave you the best blowjob of your life, I’m not inclined to feel sympathy for you right now,” he said, and managed to mostly kiss Eames back and if it was sloppy and uncoordinated it was also really good. 

“I knew this about you, you know, I knew you’d be fucking smug in bed,” said Eames into his mouth. 

“I’ll give you full notes later,” said Arthur, and nipped at Eames’s ridiculous lower lip. 

“Put them in a little folder with my name on it?” asked Eames, and suddenly bit underneath Arthur’s jaw. 

“Oh,” said Arthur, and arched into him before he could stop himself. 

“Ah,” said Eames, sounding satisfied. “Is that what shuts you up?” His hands wriggled their way into Arthur’s jeans. 

“Don’t stop,” Arthur said, squirming his way to a better angle. 

“Am I getting full marks so far?” asked Eames into his ear, as he stroked mercilessly with his hands and tugged at Arthur’s earlobe with his teeth. 

“Your…dirty talk needs work,” Arthur managed, and cursed when Eames suddenly slowed his rhythm, dragging Arthur back from the orgasm. 

Eames chuckled right against his ear, a low dark sound that made Arthur’s breath catch, just the _sound_ of it, and then he said, “Shut up and fucking come,” and did something with his hand that was absolutely _amazing_. 

Arthur, when he stopped floating enough that he could feel the ground again, was aware of Eames half on top of him and half to the side of him, said in a little accusatory grumble, “That was some kind of fucking magic trick you just did there.” 

“Sleight of hand, darling, I’m very, very good at it,” purred Eames, self-satisfied. “Now I’m going to say something very unsexy but my leg is fucking killing me in this position so if you could shift a bit…” 

Arthur gathered enough energy to flop a little bit out of Eames’s way so he could get his weight entirely off of his leg. 

Eames nuzzled at him and said, “I’m much, much better at this whole thing when I have two working legs.” 

Arthur said, “Good, because that was fucking terrible.” 

Eames laughed into his skin. “Christ, you’re a terrible person, you know it?” He brushed him with a kiss and murmured, “How did I get so lucky?” 

Lucky, Arthur thought, and looked at the ceiling over their head and brushed his hand through Eames’s hair and said, “I’ve been saying ‘home.’” 

“Hmm?” said Eames against him. 

“I keep saying that we need to get home. And I haven’t been thinking how…we have two definitions of that word. I didn’t even think about the fact that you—”

“Arthur.” Eames lifted his head up so he could see him. “Where were you going to go with Lucky?” 

“New York,” Arthur answered. “I have a place there.” 

“Then we’ll go to New York,” said Eames, and paused. “Unless you don’t want me to go to New York.” 

“I want you to go to New York,” said Arthur, and pushed Eames’s wrecked hair off of his forehead. 

“It rains in New York,” Eames pointed out. 

“Yeah, but I have a doctor friend there who can look you over for me.” 

“You’ve just looked me over and I’m marvelously fine,” said Eames, and leered at him. 

“I want you to know that this?” Arthur waved a hand between the two of them. “Happened in spite of your lines, not because of them.” 

Eames laughed and kissed him. 

Arthur felt the press of happiness inside of him, pushing up against his ribcage, surely too big to be contained, surely too much for him to handle. He said, raw with honesty, “You’re a thing I can’t control and I’m bad at things I can’t control so I’m going to fuck this up.” 

Eames said, “Darling, what have I told you? Stop with all this ‘I’ nonsense. We’re a ‘we,’ and I’m in it with you to make sure you don’t ever fuck anything up.”


	9. Chapter 9

They walked out of JFK. Arthur looked at the rain falling steadily and said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“I’m sure it will let up soon,” Eames said soothingly. “Let’s get a taxi.” 

Arthur grumbled, out-of-sorts. Lucky in his arms also managed to do her own very good imitation of Arthur-grumbling. Lucky had emphatically not enjoyed flying. Which meant that neither Arthur nor Eames had enjoyed flying as a result. Arthur had walked up and down the aisle of the plane with her endlessly, collecting death stares from every other passenger. Eames was sure they were all now on Arthur’s own personal hit list.

“We’re home now,” said Eames, trying to improve morale in his little coterie. “It all gets better from here.” 

“No pep talks,” glowered Arthur. “I don’t do fucking pep talks.”

“Does Lucky do fucking pep talks?” asked Eames mildly. “New York’s really a nice place, Lucky. You’ll like it, I promise.” 

Lucky glared at him. 

“No,” remarked Eames, “Lucky doesn’t do pep talks either.” 

The little old lady in the taxi line in front of them cooed at Lucky, apparently ignorant of the fact that Lucky and the man holding her were both in terrible moods. 

Lucky stuck her cat toy in her mouth and refused to grace the little old lady with any Lucky smiles. She looked a lot like Arthur, actually, with that look on her face, thought Eames. She’d already perfect Arthur’s _why am I surrounded by idiots_ disapproving frown. 

The little old lady said, “Isn’t he just _darling_? Hello, little one! Hello!” She waggled her fingers in Lucky’s face. 

Lucky squawked in displeasure. 

Arthur said flatly, “She’s a girl.” 

“Oh, dear, you can never tell at this age, can you? You should dress her in pink.” 

Arthur said nothing. Arthur frowned thunderously. 

The little old lady kept waggling her fingers at the unimpressed Lucky and said, “What’s her name?” 

“Lucky,” said Arthur. 

The little old lady blinked and looked at him. “Lucky?” 

“It’s an old family name,” said Eames, trying to head off disaster. 

And then the little old lady got called to a taxi, thankfully. 

“Why is it any of her business what we dress our baby in? Why is it any of her business what we call our baby? She was a terrible person,” complained Arthur. “Americans are _terrible_ , Lucky. Why have I taken you to this horrible country?” 

“Why didn’t you just lie to her?” asked Eames, a little exasperated. 

“Lucky’s confused enough as it is, what with us changing her name on her constantly and her whole life everybody talked Spanish to her and now we’re talking English to her all the time and now she’s in New York and thousands of miles away from anyone she’s related to so whether or not some idiot old lady thinks ‘Lucky’ is an appropriate name for our child is not high on my list to worry about so I’m not going to invest effort into a lie.” 

Eames lifted his eyebrows and wisely refrained from saying anything else. Because, after all, he had not been the one walking Lucky on the plane and so it was understandable Arthur was wound a little tightly. 

Arthur relaxed the closer they got to his house. He lived in Greenwich Village, on a side street near Washington Square, a charming lovely brownstone with cheerful flower boxes on the front windows. It had been redone recently, so that the main floor was a dramatic open living space facing a back garden that was obviously very alluring when the weather was better. The place was decorated cozily, with comfort in mind, none of the sleek, expensive furniture or awkward antiques Eames had been expecting. Although there was very nice art on the walls. 

Eames hobbled his way through the space and said, “Darling, this is fabulous.” 

“Glad you like it,” said Arthur, sounding distracted. He was going through mail on the dining room table. He’d put Lucky down on the floor, and she was already crawling her way over to the floor-to-ceiling windows so she could get a look outside. 

Eames watched her, impressed with how quickly she was getting the hang of that. “This place is going to need to be baby-proofed.” 

“She won’t be here long,” said Arthur. 

Eames looked at him in surprise, because surely it was obvious to anyone who looked at Arthur that there was no way he was giving this baby up. 

Arthur distracted him by saying, “This is for you,” and handing him a small package. 

“I’m getting mail at your house?” he said, confused. 

“I called ahead for you.” 

Eames, curious, leaned on his crutches and pulled out of the package…a bottle of pills. “Oh, my God, you’re _amazing_ ,” said Eames, reverently. “You got me _proper painkillers_.” 

Arthur smiled at him and then walked over to where Lucky was sitting by the windows, hands pressed against them. “What do you think, Lucky?” Arthur asked her. 

Lucky babbled at him and banged against the window. 

“Yeah, it’s not bad,” Arthur agreed, and brushed a kiss over the top of her head. 

And Arthur still thought he was giving her up. Eames shook his head and decided that was an issue that could wait for another day, because he had _actual, real painkillers_ in his hand, and maybe for the first time since he’d regained consciousness he could stop wanting to go crazy with the constant ache of pain at the site of the clumsy stitches. 

So he said, “Do you need me, or can I go somewhere in this house and get high on painkillers?”

“The bedrooms are all up the stairs,” Arthur said. 

“I don’t care,” said Eames. “I will make it up the stairs. I have the lure of these to inspire me.” Eames shook the bottle of pills. 

“This way, then,” Arthur said, and scooped Lucky up and carried her up the stairs, Eames following behind. 

The master bedroom was done in shades of navy blue and gray and looked out over the back garden. It was an enormous room, with a four-poster bed set on one side and an impeccably organized study area on the other side, crowded with books. At another time Eames was going to snoop through those bookcases. For now he just collapsed gratefully on Arthur’s really luxuriously comfortable bed. 

“Darling,” Eames said, catching his hand and pulling him closer to the bed. “Thank you for being a hedonist,” he said seriously. 

Arthur smiled at him and said, “You’re ridiculous,” but leaned down and kissed him, which made him feel better. “Let me get you some water.” Arthur, still carrying Lucky, disappeared into the en-suite bathroom, then re-emerged with a glass of water. 

Eames swallowed his pills and then snuggled into Arthur’s pillows. “I think I’m going to sleep for a thousand years.” 

“That’s fine with me. You know why?” 

Eames opened one eye to look at him. “Why?” 

“You were right and I feel better now. Because your associate in Nicaragua came through and his passports were impeccable and we’re home.” 

“Welcome home, Joshua Cunningham,” Eames told him, and passed out. 

***

The television at the foot of Arthur’s bed rose dramatically from the edge of what Eames had thought was a simple antique chest.

Lucky made an exclamation of delight at seeing its steady whir upward. 

Eames agreed. “That’s Arthur for you,” he told Lucky. “Hedonist all the way. Good bloke to have thrown your lot in with.” 

Arthur was showering. Eames had woken feeling a million times more clear-headed than he had at any point since being shot, and Arthur had been visibly relieved, so Eames assumed he even looked much better. He felt brimming with energy. 

Lucky was picking up on his good mood. She was laughing at everything he did. It was a complete turnaround from her unhappiness on the plane. Arthur said she’d napped, too, which explained a lot. 

“And what did you do while we were sleeping?” Eames had asked quizzically. 

“I worked,” Arthur had answered. “We’ve been MIA a long time. I had a ton of e-mails that needed to be replied to with, ‘Yes, actually I’m still alive.’” 

Which made some sense. 

Arthur emerged now from the bathroom. He was still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt but even Eames could tell they were designer. And he’d shaved and pushed his hair back off of his face. It badly needed to be cut; Eames supposed that was next on Arthur’s list. 

Lucky looked at him and promptly started crying. 

Arthur looked at her in surprise. 

“She liked you with the beard,” Eames remarked, while Lucky cried heartbrokenly. 

“Hey,” Arthur said in alarm, and picked her up. “It’s still me. Look. I’m right here. Lucky.” 

“Smile at her. She’ll love your dimples.” 

“Babies don’t care about dimples, Eames.” 

“Remember when you weren’t an expert on babies? Those were simpler times,” remarked Eames. 

Arthur glared at him then smiled at Lucky, dimples on display, and Lucky did calm down and reach a tentative hand out to touch Arthur’s smile. Arthur nibbled at her fingers, and Lucky giggled. 

“She adjusts quickly,” said Eames. 

“Thank God, because she’d had a lot of adjustment to do in her young life,” Arthur replied. Then he looked over at Eames. “Don’t tell me you preferred the beard, too.” 

Eames chuckled. “I did not. I happen to really like your dimples. The beard took too much attention away from them.” 

“Good.” Arthur put Lucky back down on the bed and then climbed on with them, which caused Lucky to promptly crawl into Arthur’s lap and settle herself against him. “Are you going to shave?” 

“What’s your opinion on the beard?” 

Arthur wrinkled his nose. “It’s messy.” 

“Of course it is.” Eames thought Arthur was _adorable_ and he was _hopeless_. “I will shave just for you, darling,” he said, and leaned over and kissed him, because now he could, he could kiss Arthur _whenever he wanted_. 

The doorbell rang. 

“Is that your doorbell?” Eames asked. 

Arthur looked amused. “Yes,” he answered. 

“Who’s ringing your doorbell?” asked Eames suspiciously. How could anyone know they were in New York? 

“My doctor friend who’s going to look you over for me,” said Arthur, and rolled off the bed. 

“Do I need to be jealous of this doctor friend?” 

“No!” Arthur called back. 

***

Arthur had met Stephen through a job years ago. Not that Stephen was really in the business, because Stephen was a doctor, but he had been tangential to a job that had gotten messy. There had been a brief experiment in dating that had been mutually agreed to be abandoned in favor of a friendship. When Arthur was in town, they met for coffee and complained how horrible music was these days. And, sometimes, Arthur asked for illicit painkillers. 

Stephen was good at rolling his eyes and complying. 

Arthur opened the door with Lucky in his arms and Stephen looked at her and said, “So is this the baby you mentioned.” 

“This is Lucky,” Arthur confirmed. “Say hello to Stephen, Lucky. She doesn’t really talk yet,” he informed Stephen. 

Stephen looked amused. “I do know the basics on how babies work.” 

“Well, she crawls already,” said Arthur a little defensively. “So she’s clearly very advanced for her age.” 

“Uh-huh,” agreed Stephen, with a curl of a smile to his lips. “Shall I start my examination with her?” 

“No, I need to feed her,” Arthur said. “Eames is upstairs in my bedroom, you can start with him.” 

“Eames is upstairs in your bedroom,” repeated Stephen, closing the door behind him. 

Arthur said, willfully oblivious to Stephen’s implication, “Yes. That is Eames’s location.” 

“Fine,” said Stephen, clearly not deterred for a second. “We’ll talk about that later.” 

Arthur watched Stephen walk up the stairs, then he said to Lucky, “I need to get a less annoying convenient doctor friend.” 

***

Eames didn’t really know what to make of the man who walked into Arthur’s bedroom carrying a medical bag. He was young and good-looking and had a kind smile when he introduced himself to Eames, and really a good bedside manner, and Eames wasn’t at all jealous of him, of course not. 

He got right down to business, and he was the sort of good doctor who didn’t make you feel self-conscious when he was pulling off your trousers to poke at your leg. 

He frowned and said, “Arthur said it nicked your artery?” 

“I was out of it,” Eames said. “You’d be better off asking Arthur for the details.” 

“How long have the stitches been in?” 

Eames tried to count back. “I’m not sure. Again, you’d be better off asking Arthur. Maybe two weeks?” Had it really only been two weeks? That seemed impossible. In two weeks he had acquired a boyfriend and a daughter. Was that how these things went? 

“Okay, they need to come out,” said Stephen. “But this actually looks good. No sign of infection. You might not even have that bad of a scar.”

“Arthur’s worried about me getting it wet.” 

“You can get it wet. That’ll be fine. How much pain are you in?” 

“Not as much as I was,” said Eames. 

“So it’s been getting better.”

“Yes. Even before I got the better painkillers.” 

“And how is your penis working?” asked Stephen innocently. 

Eames frowned. “It’s fine.” 

“Well, that’s a good sign,” said Stephen lightly. “Sometimes there can be penile nerve damage.”

“No penile nerve damage,” said Eames firmly. 

Stephen smiled. “Arthur didn’t mention anything about your bone being broken, and judging from what you’re saying, I think you got lucky there. I don’t normally say people are lucky when their artery gets hit but Arthur worked some kind of miracle there with you. If the pain’s already improving, you might also get lucky on nerve damage. You’ll definitely have muscle recovery issues, though. You’ll need physical therapy. You’ve been using the crutches?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good. Keep using them. How good is your identity here? Can I get you in a hospital for x-rays? I want to see exactly what he did in there.” 

“You bloody Americans have confusing health insurance situations,” said Eames, “but I can find an identity to use, if you need it.” 

“I’d have a better assessment.” Stephen straightened away from Eames’s leg and leaned against the wall next to the bed. “But for now I have to say that for someone who nearly died in some alley in Nicaragua, you’re in remarkable shape.” 

“That’s Arthur for you. How long do you think I’ll be on the crutches?” 

“It depends on what the bone situation looks like off the x-ray. And also on what the physical therapist says. And also on how stubborn you are.” 

“Very stubborn,” said Eames. 

“I’ve heard,” remarked Stephen. He had his arms crossed and was regarding Eames assessingly, and Eames had the feeling it was no longer about the bullet wound. Which was confirmed when Stephen mused, “So you’re Eames.” 

“Theoretically,” said Eames, a little on-edge at the tone. 

“I have heard quite a lot about you,” continued Stephen. 

Eames wanted to ask if he’d heard good things or bad things, but refused to rise to the bait. He said merely, “Arthur and I work together a lot.” 

“You’re in Arthur’s bed,” said Stephen. 

“Arthur’s a very devoted colleague,” said Eames. 

“You answered the penis question without hesitation,” noted Stephen. 

Eames said, “Is our examination over?” 

“So I take it you don’t need me to clear you for sexual activity,” Stephen continued. He looked like he was actually having fun with this. 

So Eames thought, _Fuck it_ , and said, “So far, the sex hasn’t killed me.” 

Stephen grinned and said, “I’ll tell Arthur to bring you in tomorrow so I can check it all more thoroughly.”

***

“Can I hold her?” Arthur asked. “Because I think she’d be calmer if I held her.”

“This shouldn’t be traumatic for her,” Stephen said. “It’s a stethoscope, Arthur.” 

“Still,” said Arthur, because Lucky was looking uncertain and had a fist tight in Arthur’s shirt. 

“Fine.” Stephen leaned down to be on Lucky’s level and gave her a bright smile. “Hello, Lucky. I am going to listen to your heart, how’s that?” Stephen held up the stethoscope. 

Lucky reached for it and examined it closely. 

“Meet with your approval?” Stephen asked, coaxing the stethoscope back. “You’re already making her into a discerning consumer like you,” he commented to Arthur. 

“You mean I’ve taught her the benefits of healthy suspicion,” said Arthur, and wasn’t really sure how he felt about that. 

“Lucky, huh? That’s an interesting name.” Stephen moved the stethoscope over Lucky’s chest. Lucky tried to catch it and hold it still. 

“It wasn’t my choice. It doesn’t matter, it’s only temporary.” 

“Are you re-naming her?” 

Arthur was surprised by the question. “No, I’m giving her up for adoption.” 

Stephen said, after a second, “Oh.” 

“You didn’t think I was _keeping_ her?” said Arthur, incredulous. “Have you _met_ me? How would I raise a baby?” 

“I don’t know.” Stephen put his stethoscope away. “Thoroughly and carefully, the way you do everything else? Let’s test your eyes a bit, Lucky.” Stephen took out some other device, shining a light quickly in Lucky’s eyes. Lucky jerked her head away in reaction. 

Arthur changed the subject. “How old do you think she is?” 

“You said she’s crawling? Eight months, would be my best guess.” 

“I’ve only been feeding her formula. Should I also be giving her baby food?” 

“You can try it. She’s old enough for it.” 

“I’m going to need you to help me with the adoption papers. Seeing as how I’ve smuggled her into the country.” 

“The illegal requests never stop with you, do they?” said Stephen lightly, now looking in Lucky’s ears. 

Lucky made a sound of annoyance. 

“Tell me her story,” Stephen said. 

“I found her in a pile of garbage. Turns out her father’s the head of one of Nicaragua’s major drug cartels. From what I could glean, I think her mother was supposed to get rid of her and didn’t. He found out and, I think, killed the mother. I think putting Lucky in the garbage was her last-ditch effort.”

“No wonder you call her Lucky,” Stephen said. 

“Eames calls her Lucky. I’m just…going along with it.” 

“Well, I think she might be getting ready to start teething, judging by how much she’s drooling. Has she been chewing on stuff?” 

“She chews on everything. Her hand, her cat toy…” 

“Her cat toy?” Stephen lifted his eyebrows at him. 

“Look, options were limited, okay?” 

“She looks good.” Stephen straightened away from her and leaned against Arthur’s kitchen counter. “Someone was taking care of her. And you’ve continued. I’m sure she’s going to need vaccines and stuff, especially if you want her to be adopted. I’d rather you bring her to a pediatrician but you’re going to protest, aren’t you?”

Arthur hesitated. “Can you find me a pediatrician who won’t ask too many questions about the fact that I kidnaped a baby?” 

“Probably not,” admitted Stephen. 

“I don’t want to punish her for that. If you think she needs a pediatrician, I’ll deal with the mess.” Arthur said it firmly, because it was true. He was good at dealing with messes. He didn’t want Lucky to have to sacrifice because of the situation the adults around her had created. This was why he needed to give her up for adoption: so that she wouldn’t have to sacrifice for crazy, irresponsible adults. 

“Bring her in,” Stephen said after a moment. “I’ll see what I can do. You need to bring your other patient in, too.” 

Lucky was squirming a little bit, so Arthur put her down and watched her closely as she crawled over to the window. 

“How is he?” Arthur asked. 

“Kind of miraculous, given what you said happened to him. He is not what I expected.” 

Arthur walked over to where Lucky had begun banging on the window, bringing her her cat toy for distraction. “He’s just very stubborn,” said Arthur. 

“You did a good job with him, Arthur. I’m not sure I know anyone who could have done better. He’ll need some physical therapy to help with the muscle recovery, but that was inevitable. At least he doesn’t seem to have nerve damage. He says his penis is in perfect working order.” 

Arthur gave him a sharp look. “You asked him about his _penis_?” he complained. 

Stephen said, “It was a relevant medical question. And you’re playing house with the formerly unrequited love of your life and a baby you’re giving up for adoption.” 

“I’m not playing house,” said Arthur, annoyed. “You’ve got this entire situation wrong.” 

“I’m not wrong. I’m wondering why you’re not bouncing off the walls with happiness.” 

“I have an internationally renowned thief in my bed who almost died two weeks ago and the illegitimate daughter of a drug lord is crawling around on my living room floor and every single person in this house except for you has a price on their head.” 

Stephen looked unperturbed. “You’re in love with that internationally renowned thief and don’t pretend you’re not a criminal, too. And you saved that little girl’s life and she very obviously adores you. You’re focusing on the negatives, Arthur.” 

“Focusing on the negatives keeps me alive,” said Arthur. Lucky was trying to crawl under the coffee table, and Arthur leaned down to pull her out, swinging her into his arms. 

“You’re always too suspicious to actually enjoy a good thing when it tumbles in your lap. Stop stressing out for a little while.” 

“Absolutely. I’ll get right on that, right after I concoct fake identities for everyone so that they can get proper medical treatment tomorrow and not die on me anytime soon. But as soon as I get that covered, relaxation for me all the way,” drawled Arthur sarcastically. 

Stephen chuckled and shook his head and looked at the baby and said, “He’s all yours, Lucky. Take him with a grain of salt.” 

Lucky stuck her hand in her mouth. 

“Good-bye, Stephen,” said Arthur firmly. 

Stephen grinned at him. “You’re welcome for covering up your house full of illicit activities. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he called back as he walked out the door. 

Arthur sighed and carried Lucky up to see Eames. 

“Stephen says you’re in good shape,” said Arthur, and tried not to betray how relieved he was over that, how much he’d been figuratively holding his breath in terror that Eames wasn’t really doing as well as he seemed.

“ _Stephen_ ,” said Eames, “was very interested in my penis. You should be jealous, petal.” 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “I am not jealous.” 

“Do you get jealous? I’m going to make it my mission in life to someday make you jealous.” 

“Mature,” said Arthur. 

“Mmm. What did Stephen say about Lucky?” 

Arthur kissed her cheek and said, “He thinks she’s eight months old and in excellent health. He’s going to help me with the adoption papers.” 

“The adoption papers,” said Eames, and gave Arthur a funny look. 

“What’s that look for?” demanded Arthur suspiciously. 

“Nothing.” 

Arthur looked down at Eames and thought of Lucky being wary of the stethoscope. Maybe he was infecting her with suspicion. Maybe he was going to take this happy, laughing baby and turn her into an apprehensive pessimist. This was why he had to give her up for adoption. 

And maybe also why he needed to deposit her on Eames’s chest and crawl onto the bed and snuggle next to him. Under normal circumstances he would never have done something like that, but Stephen was right: For this brief moment of time, he had all of these magnificence in his own house, his for the taking, his to pretend was his forever. And he was _wasting_ it. 

So he put Lucky on Eames’s chest and snuggled in next to him. 

Eames didn’t even act surprised. Not for the first time Arthur wondered at Eames’s vision of him. It seemed so very different from Arthur’s own vision of himself. 

Eames said into his ear, “You should know: your friend Stephen very graciously cleared me for sexual activity.” 

Arthur said blandly, “Really? There’s nothing wrong with your penis? Is he sure?” 

“Darling,” said Eames, “come up here so I can kiss you senseless.”


	10. Chapter 10

Arthur went shopping. 

He would never have admitted it out loud to anyone but shopping was Arthur’s form of therapy. 

He had asked Eames for requests, and Eames had said he would “just order something off the Internet or something,” and Arthur had had to suppress a shudder, and instead he bought Eames a casual pair of khakis and a truly hideous shirt that he thought Eames would appreciate. Eames could buy more stuff off the Internet if he wished, but Arthur was coming home with _something_ for him. 

And then Arthur braced himself and walked firmly into the baby section. 

In Nicaragua, he had not shopped in any stores with a proper baby section like this. And when James and Philippa had been born, he had sent them books to welcome them to the world, and on every birthday afterward, because Arthur believed in the importance of books. So this all meant that Arthur had never before stood in a sea of tiny frothy dresses. 

Shopping was Arthur’s mental retreat; he had never before felt overwhelmed by it. 

He must have looked overwhelmed, because usually when employees came over to help him they simply asked what he was looking for and he told them in clipped, no-nonsense tones and they got it for him. 

Arthur had no fucking idea what he was looking for at the moment. 

The woman who came over to him smiled at him kindly, as if he was _adorable_ , and said, “Do you need some help?” in a tone of voice that said she knew the answer was _yes, lots of help_. 

Arthur wasn’t used to being addressed as if he was adorable. Arthur went to a lot of pains to compel respect from people. He was a little bewildered at how flailing he felt. It simply wasn’t _him_. 

He fixed his tie and said, “I, uh, there’s this baby.” Oh, God, he sounded like an idiot.

The woman just nodded encouragingly, as if she believed in his ability to eventually communicate his whole story. “A girl?” she prompted. 

“Yes. A girl. She’s, um, she’s not really mine but I’m helping to take care of her, right now, and I’m not sure what…She needs some clothing but I’m not sure what she might like but she needs…something.”

“How old is she?” asked the woman. 

“Eight months,” said Arthur, thinking of Stephen’s assessment. 

“She’s probably still young enough that you don’t have to worry yet about what she likes,” the woman laughed at him. 

Arthur frowned. Of course he was worried about what Lucky liked. This woman was an idiot. 

“Were you thinking of getting her some dresses?” the woman asked. 

Arthur looked at the dresses. He thought of Mal, who used to go shopping with him in Paris in better days, and he thought of how Mal would stare at him in horror if he dressed his daughter in anything the color of sherbet. 

He said decisively, “No. At least, not these dresses. I want something more classic. And a little more practical. And anything not…orange.” 

The woman smiled at him, and then said, “Right this way,” and led him to a hidden display at the back that was normal-looking clothing, whites and creams and grays and a very pale pink that Arthur approved of. It was like a hidden treasure trove compared to everything out front, and Arthur felt a little more on solid footing, and dove into the clothing with gusto. He ended up with a variety of shirts and pants and a couple of onesies that the woman said all babies needed, whatever that meant. And he bought a headband with a little flowery bow on it, just because maybe Lucky might like to look girly. And the woman showed him a floppy sunhat and he bought it just out of optimism that somehow he and Lucky might get to see sun. 

And at the checkout desk he impulsively bought her a rattle in the shape of a cat, because Lucky liked cat toys, apparently, and surely she needed a regular toy. 

“It’s for teething,” the woman told him as she cashed him out, which Arthur considered perfect, since Lucky was apparently teething. 

Arthur arrived home to Eames sitting up and reading one of his books in the office area of the bedroom. Lucky was ripping up…something.

“Old weekly flyers from a supermarket,” Eames said in answer to Arthur’s unspoken question. “You look all zen and relaxed from your shopping trip.” 

Arthur ignored that. He sat on the floor opposite Lucky, who looked at him and grinned and waved a torn piece of supermarket flyer at him in greeting. 

“I bought you clothes,” Arthur said, and emptied the bag for her. 

Lucky looked at all the clothes politely and reached for the headband, which she seemed fascinated by. 

“And this,” Arthur said, and shook the rattle at her. 

Lucky’s eyes widened and she grabbed for it and looked rapturous over the embarrassment of riches she found herself in. 

“I thought you’d like it,” said Arthur, and kissed her head fondly. Then he turned to Eames. “I bought you some stuff, too, because, well, you needed it. What?” 

Because Eames was leaning on his chin, watching Arthur, a small smile on his face. He shook his head and said, “Nothing.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arthur finally gets some time in the sun.

Arthur was sprawled in sunshine on his back terrace, staring at adoption paperwork. He was supposed to be actually _doing_ the adoption paperwork, but instead he was just staring at it. 

Lucky was sitting on a blanket next to him, stacking playing cards that Eames had given her, having procured them somewhere. They were _I heart New York_ playing cards, so Arthur suspected he’d stolen them from somewhere on their way to and from Stephen’s that day. Eames was incorrigible. 

He was also exhausted from the physical therapy, so he was napping on the couch in the living room. 

Arthur, however, had looked at the sunshine—finally, _finally_ —and said to Lucky, “I’ve got you a hat for this and everything, let’s go be outside.” 

Lucky had thrown her cat toy across the room. 

Arthur had taken that for approval of his plan. 

And so now they were outside, and Arthur was flipping through the adoption paperwork Stephen had handed him and wondering why there was so damn much of it. 

Fuck it, he thought. He’d deal with it later. For now he was basking in sunshine, and it was warm and not raining, and Lucky was making happy little exclamations to her playing cards, so he put the paperwork aside and sprawled on the deck chair and watched Lucky, in her brand new white sunhat. Every once in a while she looked up at him, as if to make sure he was watching her brilliance, and smiled at him and made some sort of noise, and he said things like, “I see it,” and “Yes, very good” in response, because how could you not respond when she clearly was every excited about sharing something with him? 

He said eventually, “Stephen says I can try feeding you something other than formula. Would you like that?” 

Lucky tried to throw a card away from her. It didn’t go very far, and she frowned at it. 

“I don’t know what kind of food you might like. What do they eat a lot of in El Salvador? You’d think I’d know but I don’t really pay attention to the food side of a job.” 

Lucky looked at him and said something very wisely. 

“I’m sure you’re saying very brilliant things. I just wish I could understand them,” said Arthur. 

Lucky stuck her new rattle in her mouth. 

And Arthur’s cell phone rang. The cell phone he’d left in New York. Which meant there was only a limited handful of people who would know the number. 

Arthur dug it out and sighed at _Cobb_ blinking at him. 

He looked at Lucky and said, “I should get this over with, shouldn’t I?” Then he answered the phone. “Hello?” 

“ _Arthur_ ,” said Cobb, apparently already ratcheted up to eleven. “You disappear for weeks, and everyone I talk to says you were killed in Nicaragua, and I can’t find anything to contradict that, and then you waltz back in with an e-mail that says two words: _I’m fine_?”

“I am fine,” said Arthur, watching Lucky bang her rattle against the terrace in an apparent bid to break it. 

“Where _were_ you?”

“Nicaragua, like the rumors said. But not dying. It was Eames who almost died. He’s fine now, but we had to go to ground for a little while.” 

“Eames is with you. I knew you would be where he was, but I couldn’t track him down, either.” 

“No, he was on the job with me. It did not end well. But we’re fine. We’re…totally and utterly fine.” Arthur hesitated, then said, “So you haven’t heard any rumors about me?” 

“Other than your _death_ , no, no rumors. Why?” Cobb’s voice was instantly suspicious. “What have you done?” 

One of Arthur’s least favorite things about Cobb was how he could make it sound as if Arthur was always doing irresponsible things when actually it was Cobb who endlessly did irresponsible things. But Arthur needed to know the information. “I was thinking there might be some rumblings about a Nicaraguan drug lord wanting me dead, but it’s good if you haven’t heard anything, it means he hasn’t figured out who I am.” 

“A _Nicaraguan drug lord_?” exclaimed Cobb. 

“Jesus, stop overreacting, it’s not a big deal.” 

“ _Not a big deal_? What kind of job was this, Arthur? And might I remind you that you were always the one who refused to let me take any job you deemed too risky? And now you’re all tangled up with a drug lord?” 

“The drug lord thing has nothing to do with a job,” said Arthur. “I sort of kidnapped his baby.” 

“ _Sort of_?” said Cobb. 

“He didn’t want her. He wanted her dead. And she’s cute and sweet and she doesn’t deserve to die. So yeah. I kidnapped her.” 

“And did what with her?” Cobb sounded utterly incredulous. 

“Well, right now she’s here with me.”

“Arthur,” said Cobb. “You can’t raise a _baby_.” 

Arthur bristled. “I’m aware of that. I’m not an idiot. I’m giving her up for adoption, I just need to get all of her papers in order first.” 

“You should have come here. The house is still full of baby stuff, I could have helped you with her.” 

“Eames is helping,” Arthur said carefully. 

“ _Eames_?” Cobb was back to exclamations. “Eames is helping you with a _baby_?” 

“Yes, he’s been…” _Perfect_ , thought Arthur. Arthur cleared his throat and said, “Yes, he’s helping me with the baby.” 

“Well, good.” Cobb sounded uncertain. “That’s good. You’re okay, right? You sound funny.” 

“I’m just tired,” Arthur said. “It was a long two weeks.” 

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Cobb said sincerely. “You should come for a visit. The kids would love to see you.” 

“Yeah,” said Arthur, and looked at Lucky and had zero interest in going anywhere for a good long while. 

***

“I’ve been thinking,” said Arthur. It was a warm, muggy night and he and Eames were outside on the terrace, on adjacent deck chairs, demolishing a bottle of wine. _Good_ wine, because Arthur knew his wine. Lucky was sleeping in a makeshift bed on the floor inside, and Arthur had left the door open so they could hear her. It was, really, exactly what he’d fantasized about when they were stuck in Nicaragua and he’d been longing for safety at home. 

“Do you ever stop thinking?” asked Eames. 

“I think I want to stay put for a little while.” Arthur looked at Eames, almost holding his breath for a reaction. 

But Eames just swallowed some wine and said, “Fine by me, love.” 

Of course, thought Arthur. Of course it would be fine by him. He needed to stay put to get his leg back to the way it had been before. Arthur said, “Do you like New York?” 

“I love New York,” said Eames. “And your place is lovely.” Eames gave him a quizzical look. “Did you think this would be a hardship? Did you think I’d protest?”

Arthur wanted to say he didn’t know. Arthur wanted to say he was feeling his way. Arthur wanted to say that nothing made him feel as out of his depth as this thing with Eames, except, probably, for the thing with Lucky. Arthur had been, for a while now, completely clueless about his own life, and Arthur was _never_ that way. 

“Do _you_ like New York?” asked Eames, into Arthur’s silence. 

“Most of the time, yes. I get tired of it, eventually. I get tired of everywhere, eventually.” Arthur finished his glass of wine in a large gulp. 

“Where did you grow up?” asked Eames curiously. 

“California,” said Arthur. “Orange County.” 

“I knew it would be a sunny place. You love the sun.” 

“London kills me. After a while. I can handle it for a little while, and then all the gray kills me.” 

“And Paris?” 

“Depends on the time of year. The South of France, of course, is always lovely.” 

“Ah, the Mediterranean. You and I could murder Monte Carlo together, you know.” 

“You can murder Monte Carlo. I will lounge on the beach and read great literature,” said Arthur. 

“And watch Lucky make sandcastles,” said Eames. 

“Mmm,” said Arthur, and then, “No. No, not watch Lucky make sandcastles.” Arthur sat up suddenly, adding up all the little bits and pieces he should have noticed earlier. “Eames, do you want to keep Lucky?” 

“What do _you_ want?” Eames countered mildly. 

“I want her to have a good life, Eames,” said Arthur shortly.

“Me, too,” said Eames, and then said, “Do you want to have more wine, or do you want to go upstairs and have sex?” 

Arthur blinked at the change of subject. But that made some sense: Eames clearly wasn’t sitting around having deep, anguished thoughts over Lucky’s future. Everything was simple and straightforward in Eames’s head. Arthur envied him a little bit. 

“We can go upstairs, I guess,” said Arthur. 

“My head is whirling from your enthusiasm,” said Eames, sounding amused. 

“Well, don’t pretend that it was some kind of dramatic effort you made there.” 

Eames took his hand and tugged him over and said, “Light of my life, allow me to sweep you upstairs and ravish you. Only imagine most of that because I’ve got a useless leg, yeah?”

“Idiot,” Arthur said. 

“When you call me that, my brain interprets it as a term of endearment,” said Eames. 

“Because you’re an idiot,” said Arthur, but he kissed him anyway.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you find adoption and discussions about it triggery, this chapter should be avoided. 
> 
> Actually, the rest of the fic is these characters really having a lot of debates about adoption. I don't mean any of this to be some kind of comprehensive statement on the subject of adoption. Rather, it's what these particular characters think about this particular situation they're in. 
> 
> Thanks to knackorcraft for checking my sanity on this fic.

And in the morning it all went to hell. 

Eames was making omelets, and that in and of itself was perfect. And Arthur was feeding Lucky and drinking really good coffee and Eames sang as he cooked, something in French which sounded ridiculously sexy even if Arthur suspected it was horribly off-key, and Arthur thought this was the kind of moment Stephen was talking about, when Arthur just needed to relax into it. 

Eames slid his omelet in front of him, and Arthur said, “Thanks. Listen, I left the adoption papers there.” Arthur nodded toward them on the other end of the table. “Could you look them over for me and make sure I didn’t miss anything? I want them to be water-tight, I don’t want her to have any doubts in the future, you know?” Arthur took a bite of his omelet. It was good. 

That was the last positive thought he had that morning. 

Eames leaned his weight onto his crutches and looked down at him and said, “Darling, can we stop with this now?” 

“Stop with what?” asked Arthur, taking another bite of omelet and glancing down at Lucky, who was still sucking greedily on the bottle. 

“Stop with pretending you’re going to give her up.” 

Arthur froze in the act of eating and looked up at Eames. “I _am_ going to give her up.” 

Eames looked calm and knowing and infuriating. “No, you’re not.” 

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I _am_.” 

“Arthur,” said Eames patiently, “allow me to enlighten you on this subject: you are head over heels in love with that child.” 

“That’s not—no,” denied Arthur. 

Eames turned back to the omelet he was making, as if there was nothing more to discuss. “And she loves you back. It’s a happy ending.” 

“A happy ending,” said Arthur flatly. “You think there is anything about this that is a happy ending for her?” 

Something in his tone must have made Eames realize how furious he was, because Eames turned slowly from the omelet and said, “Arthur—”

“What delusional world do you live in in your head?” spat Arthur. “You tell yourself so many fairy tales, you always have, you’re never in the real world, that’s always my job. I have to be the one who tells you that you are absolutely _ridiculous_ and get you back on track and come up with a plan that actually works. So, fine, I’ve been trying to relax, but let me get back to work and do my job and explain to you that _we don’t get happy endings_ , Eames. That isn’t the life we lead. It isn’t the life we’ve chosen.” 

“That’s not true,” Eames bit out. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, obviously angry now. “That isn’t how life works. You don’t make one choice and never get to make any other choices because you’re trapped. You want out? Get out.” 

“Right. You’re absolutely right. I should just go back to school and get that Ph.D. in English I’ve been dreaming of. And you can be a great painter. And in the meantime we’ll homeschool our kidnapped child and everything will be fucking rosy, right?” 

“Close enough,” snapped Eames. “If you want a bloody Ph.D. in English, go and get one. No one’s stopping you.” 

“I don’t want one!” exclaimed Arthur. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I wanted the life that I chose. I _want_ the life that I chose! I don’t want a _baby_. I’ve never wanted a baby. If you want a baby, you need to go start fucking somebody else.” 

Lucky started crying in his arms, dropping the bottle in her agitation.

“Stop shouting,” said Eames. “You’re upsetting the baby.” 

“Yes. You’re absolutely right. That’s the first thing you’ve been right about. I’m upsetting the baby. Because this isn’t me. All of this.” Arthur waved his free hand around, the hand that wasn’t cradling a squalling baby to his chest. “You have some idealized, fantasy version in your head of me of this person you think I am, this, I don’t know, ruthless criminal with a secret heart of gold. It isn’t me.” 

“You’re lying,” said Eames viciously. 

“I’m not,” Arthur retorted evenly. “I am being completely and utterly honest. You don’t want to hear it. Because you’d rather live entirely in your _imagination_.” 

“No.” Eames hobbled over to the table on his crutches and still made it look intimidating. “You’re lying. To yourself.” Eames put his hands flat on the table and leaned over so that he could loom over Arthur. “You’re an expert at it. You do it so flawlessly that you never even notice. You tell lies on top of lies on top of lies to yourself. You have no idea who you are or what would make you happy. You have never known.” 

“So your assessment of me is that I’m stupid,” remarked Arthur, trying to speak around his tightly clenched jaw. 

“A little bit, yes,” retorted Eames hotly. “Look how long it took you to admit you were in love with me. I had to almost _die_ before you acknowledged it.” 

“Thank fuck I met you so that you can tell me who I am,” said Arthur sardonically. “Please enlighten me, Mr. Eames, I beg of you. Tell me how I’m _nicer_ than this. Tell me how I’m _sweet_ and _lovely_ and just the picture of the absolutely perfect fucking father.” 

Eames sighed and rolled his eyes, and Arthur stiffened and thought how that was the _fucking worst thing_ Eames could ever have done. Arthur was being _honest_ , Arthur was saying _important truths_ about how there was no way he could ever raise Lucky, about how Eames had him all wrong, Arthur was trying to do the right thing here, and Eames was _mocking him_. 

“Get out,” Arthur said, his voice low and lethal. 

Something about his tone made Lucky literally jump in his arms and cry harder. 

Eames blinked at him. 

“Get out,” Arthur repeated. “Now. Go.” 

“Arthur,” Eames started. 

“No. This was a bad idea. This was a _terrible_ idea. I wasn’t myself in Nicaragua, I _very obviously_ wasn’t myself in Nicaragua, and I apologize for starting us down this path, but I have every confidence you can find your way on your own from this point on.” 

“Darling,” said Eames. 

“If you call me that again, I will shoot you,” said Arthur steadily. “I hate that. I’ve always hated it. It’s a stupid thing to call a grown man. I might shoot you anyway for trespassing, because you’re still in my house, even though I’ve told you to go.” 

“I’m not going,” said Eames. “You told me not to let you fuck this up, remember?” 

“I said that before I realized that I would want to fuck it up,” said Arthur coolly. 

“You love her,” said Eames. “You’re mad about her. You smile at her endlessly. Smiling at her is your default position. You ask her these ridiculous, serious questions and when she makes a little noise in response you act as if she’s just told you one of the secrets of the universe. You buy her silly little things because you hope that she’ll smile at you when you give them to her. You cuddle her when you think I’m not looking. You’re so hopeless over her that you smother her in kisses whenever you get a chance. You should give her up if you want to, Arthur. You should give her up if you don’t want to be a father. But you shouldn’t give her up because you have this idea that she deserves better than you. I don’t know who would be better for her than you.” 

Arthur stared at him. Lucky was still crying in his arms, still unhappy, all because of Arthur, and Arthur seethed at how fucking idiotic Eames could be, to think in any universe that Arthur was anywhere near qualified for the enormous responsibility that was the potential of Lucky. And how dare Eames just pretend, so cavalierly, that that world was one Arthur could live in? 

“You know how you always think I’m so condescending to you?” asked Arthur, cruelly, viciously. “It’s because you think idiotic things like that. You’re in love with some kind of mirage you’ve created, some forgery of your own desires. And you need to get out.” 

Eames just said, “You _adore_ her.” 

And then he actually did leave.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Arthur sings to Lucky is "Place de la Republique" by Coeur de Pirate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyuPn4DPCdA). 
> 
> If you're interested, it's one of the songs on the Lucky playlist! http://earlgreytea68.tumblr.com/post/103078278056/you-knew-it-was-coming-heres-your-lucky

Arthur’s day went downhill from there. 

Arthur sat in shocked silence after his door slammed and thought he couldn’t possibly have done that. Had he actually _told Eames to go_? He had spent more years than he cared to remember longing for him from afar, and now he had…now he had…

Lucky sobbed and sobbed and Arthur moved automatically, shifting to cuddle her closer, murmuring, “Shh, shh,” into her ear, and “It’s okay,” and “I’m so sorry.” 

Part of Arthur wanted to run after Eames and apologize. 

And the other part of him didn’t know what he would be apologizing for. He _had_ to give Lucky up. Obviously. How did Eames ever think it was ever going to work, him having a child, him raising a child? Arthur was totally bewildered by who Eames seemed to think he was. 

Which made him think it was better he’d told Eames to leave now. He would have inevitably disappointed Eames’s odd, heroic picture of him and then it would have been worse because then Eames would have been so intertwined in his life that it would have been painful to extract him. 

Arthur tried to ignore how intertwined with his life Eames already was. Lucky was in a terrible mood and cried no matter what Arthur did and threw her rattle violently across the room and pouted at him and Arthur felt like a generally horrible person. 

Which he _was_ , so he deserved all of that. 

And it was a beautiful, picture-perfect, sunshiny day. 

Arthur was annoyed and pulled all the curtains so that he and Lucky could hide in appropriate depressing darkness. 

Lucky eventually fell into an exhausted sleep on Arthur’s bed and Arthur, curled up next to her, closed his eyes and considered sleeping himself. He felt exhausted, too. 

But no. Not quite right. Mostly what he felt was lonely. Mostly he was terribly lonely. 

Which was ridiculous. He’d spent the vast majority of his life without Eames. He ought to be fine. He ought to be absolutely _fine_. 

Arthur laid on his bed and looked at the photo he’d taken of Eames and Lucky in Nicaragua, smiling at each other in the grainy resolution of his cheap cell phone. Oh, my God, he was _pathetic_. He was so pathetic that he actually called Cobb. Because Arthur was so lonely that now he was calling _Cobb_. But he needed someone to talk sense to him, to remind him of who he was. 

Arthur said, “It makes sense, doesn’t it? To give her up for adoption? I mean, she’ll get some fantastic family, some lovely couple longing for a child. They deserve someone as perfect as Lucky. And Lucky deserves someone like that. It’ll be a totally perfect life for her, she’ll have everything she could ever hope for.” 

“Adoption turns out okay,” Cobb told him earnestly. “Didn’t it turn out okay for you? I mean, you got great parents who love you a lot.” 

“I did,” Arthur agreed, because it was true. “I did. It’s the responsible thing to do.” Arthur knew it sounded like he was talking himself into this. And it was absurd. When had it ever become a serious possibility that he would keep this child himself? Stupid Eames. 

“It is,” Cobb said. “It’s important to be a responsible father. Kids need stability.” 

Arthur didn’t point out how Cobb managed to say things like that unironically. 

Lucky was fussy all night. Arthur walked up and down the length of his bedroom with her and sang French pop songs to her because he didn’t know any lullabies. Lucky liked it when he was sang, went silent and watched him with wide eyes, and Arthur said to her, “Do you go quiet because you’re appalled at how horrible I sound?” and Lucky chewed hard on her rattle and answered in a babble and Arthur thought suddenly that Eames was right, he _did_ try to have conversations with her. 

“I’ve lost my mind,” Arthur told her. 

Lucky’s lower lip trembled in a heartbreaking fashion. 

“Alright,” said Arthur, “no need for _you_ to be upset over that,” and started singing _Place de la Republique_. 

Eventually Lucky fell back into fitful sleep as dawn crept over them. Arthur opened his curtains and watched the sky blushing for a long time. Once it was properly morning, he sat on the floor in the bedroom and carefully packed all of the clothes he’d bought Lucky. 

And then he sat and wrote a long and detailed account of how he’d found Lucky. He didn’t skimp on how horrible her father had been, mostly because he wanted to try to deter her from finding him because he worried something awful might happen to her if she did. But he brought the focus back to how desperately much her mother had loved her, and how she had stolen the hearts of her rescuers, too, when they had least expected it, and how they had given her up for adoption only to ensure that she have the best life possible, and how they knew she would because she was clearly amazing and remarkable and deserved all good things, and how in the short time they’d known her she had changed their lives irrevocably, and how they were so grateful to have had the honor of having had her in their lives. 

Arthur read the letter over and signed it very carefully, _Love, A &E_. 

Then he walked over to the bed and laid next to Lucky and just watched her. He thought of watching her sleep on the yacht on the way to El Salvador and couldn’t understand how that had only been days ago. 

He reached out his little finger and brushed it over her tiny fist. Lucky stirred, apparently disturbed by him, and opened her eyes and looked at him. 

Arthur shifted very close to her and said, because he knew he would regret it forever if he never did, “I love you.” 

Lucky smiled at him very brilliantly and poked at his eye. 

Arthur took that for _You’re not so bad yourself_. “But that’s not the point,” he continued. “That’s not the issue here. I hope you read the letter I wrote for you and you never, ever doubt how fiercely you were loved. You’re going to be fine, you know. You’re going to be better than fine. You’re going to be so beloved. They won’t call you Lucky, and that will make sense, because _they’re_ going to be the lucky ones, because they’re going to get you, and you’re glorious.” 

Lucky smiled and chewed energetically on Arthur’s finger and babbled a little bit. 

Arthur said, “And I’ll think of you every day. Being normal and wonderful and happy. I’ll never forget you. You’ll be the amazing dream I almost had, in a different life, where I made different choices and was a different person who deserved something perfect like you.” 

Lucky looked at him solemnly for a moment, as if she understood. Then she giggled and tried to roll her way off the bed. 

Arthur gave her a careful bath. Arthur brushed her wisp of hair and positioned her jaunty flowery bow headband on her head. Arthur showed her what she looked like in the mirror and Lucky frowned at her reflection in apparent fascination. 

“Okay,” said Arthur, kissing her cheek and grabbing the bag he’d packed for her. “Here we go.”


	14. Chapter 14

“I have patients, you know,” was what Stephen said when he came into the examining room. “Patients with actual appointments.” 

“I know,” said Arthur. “Thanks for squeezing me in.” 

“Well, I was told you were frightening everyone out there with the fact that you look like death warmed over.”

Arthur didn’t respond to that. Arthur couldn’t respond to that. Arthur was wrapping himself in point man mode. He had a to do list in his head and he was crossing it off. Lucky was singing to herself in his arms and he was steadfastly ignoring her. 

“Here,” he said, and handed Stephen the adoption papers. 

Stephen took them automatically, glanced at them, then looked up. “Arthur, I don’t do this stuff.” 

“I know. But I need you to take care of it for me. I can’t do it myself. This is a bag. I bought her a bunch of clothes, I figure there’s no reason it should go to waste.” 

Stephen took the bag and looked at Arthur calmly and said, “Alright.”

This gave Arthur pause. He’d expected Stephen to try to talk him out of it. Lucky said something into the momentary silence, and then tipped her head back to rest on Arthur’s shoulder. 

After a second, Arthur continued. “Also, I wrote her this letter.” He handed the sealed envelope across to Stephen. “I’d like it if it could be given to whoever adopts her. I think she needs an explanation. I want her to have an explanation. I didn’t have one and it was…I just want her to have an explanation, okay?” 

“Okay,” said Stephen simply. 

Lucky shifted and pressed her face into Arthur’s neck and took tight hold of his shirt, snuggling into him hard. Arthur for a moment felt as if he couldn’t breathe, resisted the temptation to snuggle her back, to brush his nose over her wisp of hair and kiss the top of her head and murmur something nonsensical to her that would make her giggle into his skin and squirm, wriggly with delight. 

“And this is her cat toy,” said Arthur to Stephen, clearing his throat. “I know it’s ridiculous but she really likes it, and she doesn’t have much that’s going to, you know, stay familiar, in the middle of all this upheaval, and oh, my God, I can’t do this.” It burst on him all of a sudden. There was literally _no way_ he was going to be able to let go of Lucky. He would physically be unable to do it. 

He clasped Lucky to him, holding her so tightly that he thought she would squawk at him, and he breathed her in and kissed her and said, “I can’t do it. I can’t actually do it.” 

“No,” said Stephen evenly, not even sounding surprised. “You can’t do this. What do you want, Arthur?”

And Arthur was never the sort of person to just say what he wanted so he blamed his exhaustion, the level of effort he was exerting to keep up his wall of denial, for the fact that the words flooded out of him. “I want her. I want to be the one that protects her from monsters in the closet, I want to be the one she comes to for comfort when she scrapes her knee, I want to discover daily who she turns out to be, I want her to be the good thing I leave in the world, I want to give her all the safety and security she needs to be the happiest person who ever lived.” 

“Are you satisfied that I let you go far enough with this farce?” asked Stephen, and then he ripped up the adoption papers. 

“But I can’t keep her,” said Arthur, even as he was hugging her as tightly as possible. 

“Of course you can keep her. Arthur, I hate to point out the obvious to you, but you’ve _been_ keeping her. She’s been yours all this time. And you’re doing fine. You’re doing better than fine. You’ve done better than anybody else ever could have in this situation.” 

“I don’t know how to be a parent,” said Arthur desperately. 

“No one does until they’re in the middle of it, Arthur. That’s how it works.” 

Arthur kissed Lucky’s cheek and breathed in her baby scent and Lucky batted her hand against his head as if to say _there, there, it’ll be okay, we’re going to do this together_. Arthur thought of how Eames had said once that nothing could keep Lucky from him. Maybe Lucky really was attached to him. Maybe Lucky loved him. 

“Am I being selfish?” he asked fretfully. 

“You’ll make a good father, Arthur. And she’s the daughter of a criminal and a stubborn, brave, and resourceful mother. Frankly, I can’t think of a better pair of parents for her than you and Eames.” 

“I fucked everything up with Eames,” Arthur said miserably. 

“Do you want to know what I know about you?” said Stephen calmly. “You’re not actually a pessimist. You’re an optimist. You’re just too scared to let yourself be one. So stop it. You’re going to be just fine. I promise. Let yourself be happy. Here.” Stephen pulled an envelope out of his lab coat pocket and handed it across to Arthur. 

“What’s this?” Arthur asked in surprise. 

“From Eames.” 

Arthur looked at him, startled. “What? When did you talk to Eames?” 

“He and I are basically best friends now,” said Stephen. 

Arthur didn’t even have time to be alarmed about that. He was ripping open the envelope. 

_You didn’t fuck anything up, we’re a we, remember, YOU ENORMOUS IDIOT. Come and find me._


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, we've reached the end! I've never written an entire fic so quickly before, and I thank all of you for coming along for the ride! Who knew I'd make Arthur and Eames into dads? 
> 
> ...Well, probably any of you who have ever read any of my other work could have predicted it, huh? 
> 
> Anyway, Lucky was a delight and I came to love her very much, as Arthur and Eames also came to love her very much, and I hope you all came to love her just as much.
> 
> Thanks to knackorcraft who did lots of first-hand research for this fic and acted as sanity check on Arthur's breakdowns.

Eames opened the door to a healthy rainstorm and a drenched Arthur standing, thank Christ, with a baby in his arms. They both glared at him. 

Arthur bit out, “You _fucking asshole_ , you made me fly to _London_ and it’s _raining_.” 

“Do come in, love,” said Eames evenly, and opened his door a little wider. 

Arthur didn’t come in. Arthur tugged him outside so that he could be drenched, too, and Arthur shoved him back against the wall and Arthur kissed him like Arthur was _dying_ and then Arthur wasn’t kissing him, Arthur was burying his face in his neck and gasping for breath and saying, “I couldn’t do it—I couldn’t give her up—I couldn’t—”

“Shh, darling,” Eames said, and kissed the side of his head and said Arthur’s magic words: “It’s going to be okay.” Arthur noticeably relaxed into him, and Eames rescued Lucky, who had been a little bit squashed and looked torn between _I’m happy to see you_ and _Why are we out in the rain?_ “Hello, Lucky,” he said, “have you had an adventure?” and then, “Come inside, it’s raining.” 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Arthur was babbling as Eames pulled him inside. “It makes absolutely no sense.” 

“What doesn’t?” Eames asked patiently, grabbing a towel off the table in the foyer, because he’d been expecting Arthur to flee to him. He had planned the London location; he’d had no real control over the rain. He ran the towel over Lucky’s hair. She was wearing her flower bow headband, although it looked a little bedraggled now. 

“I can’t raise a child, Eames. What am I doing? Instead of giving her up for adoption, I flew her across a fucking ocean. I have lost my mind.” 

Lucky was also babbling at Eames. A lot. Competing against Arthur’s babbling. Clearly a great deal had happened since Eames had been gone. 

Eames said to Lucky, “And what happened after that, poppet? Arthur behaved like an idiot? Yes, I’m used to this phenomenon.” 

“Eames, I am being _serious_ ,” complained Arthur. 

Eames looked at him, pacing swiftly in the little entryway, tearing his hands through his hair. “I know you are,” Eames said. “Darling.” Eames stepped forward and ran the towel over Arthur’s hair. 

Arthur caught it and Eames thought he was going to get snapped at but Arthur just looked up at him helplessly and Eames’s heart broke a little bit. This, he thought, was why he’d fallen in love with Arthur. Because the Arthur underneath everything was someone who loved so much that he tore himself into pieces over it. 

“ _Darling_ ,” Eames said again, softer this time, and kissed his forehead. “Stop and breathe. Do you ever reach emotional epiphanies without having complete breakdowns beforehand?” 

“No,” Arthur said miserably. “I am terrible at feelings. Just what you want in a father and a boyfriend, right?” 

“This hypothetical father and boyfriend, is he also tremendously kind-hearted and good-intentioned?” 

“No,” said Arthur. “He’s _horrible_. He has all sorts of blood on his hands and—”

“When you add up the tally sheet of your life, you only add up the awful things you’ve done. You never add up all the good things. You saved me and you saved Lucky—”

“Fine, but—”

“You saved Cobb’s life constantly. You saved everybody’s life during the inception job. Do you count those?” 

“I just did my job, Eames. How could I not have—”

“You have no idea who you are. Don’t get all offended with me. But you don’t. You know everything about everything else, but I’m the expert on you. And you’re _delightful_ , Arthur. You’re so much better than most of the people you know deserve. Me included. You love with such abandon that you literally make yourself a little bit crazy over it. Lucky’s going to figure out what a softie you are and manipulate you like mad. Encouraged only very, very slightly by me. Honestly, darling, the only thing wrong with you is that you’re not a you. You’re a we. We’re all one huge we.” 

Lucky was squirming and babbling, clearly ready to go explore Eames’s flat. 

Arthur looked at her and took a deep breath and said, “How _not_ baby-proof is this place?” 

“I’ve been getting it ready,” Eames said, putting the baby down. “Let’s just say that I expected something like this.”

“And what if I’d given her up for adoption the way I said I was going to? What if you’d turned out to be wrong about how paternal I am?” 

“I talked to Stephen, remember? I knew he’d know if you did it, so I said if you did it that I wanted her.” 

Arthur stared at him. “You were going to adopt her?” 

“Of course I was. Arthur. Did you think you were the only one who loved her?” 

Arthur was silent for a long moment. His eyes were very full and Eames braced himself for one of Arthur’s patented overemotional declarations, fueled by the potent combination of adrenaline and exhaustion. 

But Arthur said, “Transatlantic flight, Eames. With a baby. You’re an asshole,” and shoved him a little bit. 

Eames laughed and followed Lucky as she crawled into his living room. “You started it,” Eames said mildly. “I don’t want you to think that you should be able to get in the habit of not letting me help you. If you’d listened to me in the beginning and let me help you, there would have been no transatlantic flight involved.”

“I was a little harsh,” Arthur admitted. And then, haltingly, “I don’t mind the pet names.” 

Which Eames knew, but he was amazed Arthur said it out loud. He took a moment to compose himself before saying, “How was she on the flight?” 

“Not bad, actually,” said Arthur. “I told her we were coming to see you and I think she was determined to put up with it for your sake. But we both still hate you for it.” 

Eames smiled.

“You’re off the crutches,” remarked Arthur. 

“They said I should give limping around a try, get those muscles back up to fighting weight. Now that the two of you are here: let’s take her all around Europe, what do you say?” He handed Arthur a glass of wine he’d had waiting on the coffee table for him. 

“You already had the wine poured,” said Arthur. 

“I may have been tracking you,” Eames admitted. 

“I…” Arthur looked down into his wine, then back up at Eames, setting his shoulders back a little bit, bracing himself. 

_Ah_ , thought Eames. _Here is the speech_. 

Arthur said, “I am very good at being me. I do know who I am, regardless of what you think. I know what I excel at and I know what my weaknesses are and I’ve thought a lot about all of that.” 

Eames opened his mouth to protest and Arthur said, “I’m not good at being a ‘we.’ I’m not good at…that part of me. I’m terrible at being a ‘we.’ I told you I was, and I am, and I don’t know how many more times I’m going to be terrible at being a ‘we.’ And I don’t want to force you into a ‘we’ that...that’s not just us. That’s her, too. Maybe the ‘we’ you thought we would be would be running around dodging international crime syndicates and fucking all over the world, and instead the only ‘we’ I can offer you is us with her and if you don’t want that, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. If you’re doing this because you think that you have to because of Lucky, you don’t have to. I’ll find a way.” 

“Arthur, listen to me very carefully,” said Eames. “Everything I want in life— _everything_ —is here in this room. _Everything_. I don’t care what the bloody hell happens outside of it. You changed our lives when you brought her home and I think it’s bloody brilliant. I think it’s going to be more of an adventure than anything else I was anticipating with you. I think only you could surprise me so thoroughly and so delightfully. I think I want you to keep surprising me like that the rest of our lives. But I still think we should fuck all over the world, just with her in tow.” 

Arthur looked at him. Then Arthur laughed. Then Arthur said, “I’ve got a job offer.” 

Eames blinked. “You’ve got a what?” 

“Corporate security,” Arthur said. “Sub security, of course.” 

“You’ve already got a job.” Eames felt a little dazed. “I mean, I’d expect nothing less from you to have it all sorted already, but still.” 

Lucky came crawling by at full speed, chasing a billiard ball that she’d managed to procure from somewhere. Eames was a little alarmed at the level of ingenuity she was already displaying. Arthur had to be rubbing off on her. 

“A billiard ball?” said Arthur. “That’s baby-proof?” 

“It’s too big for her to swallow,” Eames pointed out. 

Arthur sighed and went to retrieve the billiard ball and said, “I’ve been sitting on the job offer for a while. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to…I wasn’t sure if…” Arthur sighed and said, “Fuck, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give up the opportunity to see you as much as I got to if I stayed in the field,” he said, quickly, as if getting it out. “But if you’re…If you’re willing to come home to wherever I am, then I want the job. It’ll be some stability for her, and there’ll still be travel, and I don’t think I’ll get too bored. We could live wherever you wanted, I’m not tied to a location.” Arthur tucked Lucky against his hip, while she protested the billiard ball being taken away from her, and he looked like a natural doing it, he did it unthinkingly, automatically. 

Eames looked at him and loved him so much that he actually hurt with it. “And where’s she going to go to university?” 

“Wherever she wants,” Arthur said. 

“But have you set aside the money already?” 

Arthur shifted and admitted, “There may be a fund, yes.” 

Eames stepped forward and kissed Arthur and then kissed Lucky and then kissed Arthur. “I love you,” he said. 

Arthur said to him, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I love you, too. I’m mad about you. I _adore_ you.” 

Eames said, “But I knew that already, darling.” 

“I also fucking hate you,” said Arthur. 

“We’re going to have one hell of a life, petal,” said Eames in delight. 

“Looking forward to it,” said Arthur, and Eames knew he meant to say it dryly, but Eames also knew that he meant every single word. 

 

_The end._

 

But wait, you might say. EGT, how can you say this babyfic is finished? You haven’t talked about the first time they go to visit Cobb and he tries to criticize their child-rearing and Eames basically glares at him until he shrivels. 

Nor have you talked about when Lucky starts talking and calls everything by random terms of endearment (“Hello, sippy cup, my darling!”) because she thinks that’s normal, which is all Eames’s fault, but Arthur is resigned to it because Eames is so tickled by it. 

You haven’t talked about how they don’t celebrate Lucky’s birthday (although they choose one for her), but instead they celebrate the anniversary of the day Arthur found her. 

And on that day they tell her the Story of Her, because Arthur is insistent that she know how much her mother sacrificed because of how much she loved her. 

And for that reason Lucky knows exactly how she came by her unusual name, because she was lucky enough to be loved so much by her mom and to be found by her dads who then came to love her so much in turn. 

And so Lucky is fiercely protective of her name, correcting anyone who misreads it as “Lucy” and being very harsh to anyone who suggests it might be inappropriate. 

And Lucky grows up all over the world and is a very good actress for purposes of manipulation but is also neat as a pin and very obsessed with to-do lists that she painstakingly writes out as soon as she can hold a crayon. 

And sometimes Eames tries to convince her to dress more loudly but Lucky likes muted pinstripes with just a dash of color by way of a headband. 

And Arthur is convinced Lucky is just like Eames, with her penchant for running cons on the playground and her tendency to imitate great works of art for Christmas gifts and her ability to forge either of their signatures before she can even write her own. 

But Eames thinks he knows the truth: that Lucky is Arthur’s and always has been, that Lucky worships everything he does and wants to grow up to be just like him, that Arthur is there in Lucky’s discerning insistence on perfect planning, in her faint frown of disapproval over other people’s inevitable lack of preparedness. 

And Lucky would tell you that they’re both wrong, because she is both of them, and her plan is to grow up to somehow be both of them always, forever and ever, because they are both her favorite people on the planet, and the best people in the whole wide world, and whenever someone asks her her name, she thinks of her dads and how they tuck her in at night with cuddles and kisses, and how if one of them is traveling for work they still call her every day just to make sure she remembers how much they love her, and how they make her special meals for no reason just because, and how they let her cheat at cards, and how they sing her Spanish songs because of where they found her and French songs because they met in France and Korean songs because who doesn’t love K-pop, and she’s thinking of all of that when she answers the question: 

_I’m Lucky._


End file.
